


Second Mesa

by emmadelosnardos



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: 2016 US Presidential Election, Adult Content, Alternate Universe - Medical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, First Time, Interracial Relationship, Medicine, Native American Character(s), POV First Person, POV Male Character, Period-Typical Racism, Psychology, Romance, Second Chances, Slow Burn, well this just got political
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-05-14 08:46:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 69,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14766353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmadelosnardos/pseuds/emmadelosnardos
Summary: Chakotay runs a health clinic in rural Arizona. Janeway is sent as the new medical director.





	1. Chapter 1

After my father passed, the letter from the Indian Health Service lay on my desk in Flagstaff for nearly a week before I opened it. I knew it would tell me who his replacement would be, and I wasn’t ready to start thinking about that. –Easier to pretend he was still on sick leave, easier to pretend that between the two of us, Torres and I could single-handedly run the clinics by ourselves. It had been that way for the last nine months, and no one was the worse for it. Opening that letter meant accepting that my father was dead, in a way that his funeral and my sister’s tears and my niece’s empty eyes still belied the fact.

It also meant that, most likely, I’d be the only Hopi working at the Second Mesa Clinic since my father had established it nearly forty years ago, and that was another loss to our community. Torres was half Mexican, half Navajo, and that meant a lot to our patients too, I reminded myself. But Second Mesa was on Hopi land, and our Chief Medical Director had always been Hopi.

“You can call me Chief,” my father had liked to joke to the White doctors who visited, and knew by their nervous laughter that they were thinking of totem poles and dream catchers and couldn’t quite grasp his talk of _community based health_ and _empirically supported treatments_ and _culturally appropriate interventions._ They were more comfortable with the Kachina dolls and the cliff dwellings and the pictographs that he brought them to; they found it harder to fathom that my father was doing cutting-edge rural medicine in Flagstaff and Second Mesa.

I would have waited another week to open that letter, but by then our new Medical Director was on her way from Albuquerque, though she wasn’t due for at least another month. I got the surprise of my life that Friday afternoon before Memorial Day, when I said goodbye to my last clinic patient and the doorbell rang again.

“Torres –” I called to our nurse practitioner – “Tell them we’re closed until Tuesday, and if it’s urgent to go to the hospital.”

I puttered around in my office, filing away the journal articles scattered on my desk, watering my plants and tidying my pens, and listened to the sound of two women talking down the hallway. I poked my head out the door. “Torres?” I asked.

Belanna was standing by the scale with a red-haired, White woman of about her same height; sharp-chinned, long-legged, and very tired, if one judged by the circles under her eyes.

“You must be Robert Chakotay,” she said, holding her hand out to me. I looked at her blankly before taking her hand. I knew who she was, I _must_ have known who she was – she was so familiar, if somewhat aged. When had I known her?

Then I remembered. First year chemistry at Dartmouth, when I was still a pre-med and my mother hadn’t passed away yet. Kathryn Janeway had set the curve in the introductory sequence in Chemistry that first semester. I was infatuated with her from a distance, as I tended to be around the smart, preppy girls, but she had barely known me from Adam until I broke her curve in the second semester. We had studied together a few times after that, but then I took time off from school to run the clinic for my father when my mother died. When I came back to Dartmouth she must have graduated already because I don’t remember running into her again.

“I’m Kathryn Janeway,” she said somewhat pompously, needlessly.

“I know who you are,” I said, laughing and raising an eyebrow at her. She looked back at me coldly, appraisingly. “But what are you doing here?”

Belanna interrupted. “Dr. Janeway is the new medical director,” she said. “She said you should have received a letter…”

“Admittedly, I’m a bit early,” the not-quite-stranger said in that deep, whiskey-plied voice of hers. “Not supposed to start for another month, but I was in the area and couldn’t help but look in. Wanted to get my bearings before starting, check out the housing situation.”

“Of course, of course,” I said, pretending I knew all about it. “Welcome to Flagstaff, Dr. Janeway. I’m Robert Chakotay, as you already know. I’m the psychologist here, and I’ve been the acting clinic director since my father died. A pleasure to meet you.” A twinkle in her eye – did she remember me?

“I’ve heard so much about this place,” she said. “I used to correspond with your father; you might say I was a fan of his work, here and at Second Mesa. His success at reversing diabetes among the Navajo and Hopi using traditional food ways and exercise – such genius!”

“After that _Lancet_ article broke he had quite a few fans,” I told her. The light in her eyes dimmed. _She had known my father too? For how long?_

“I was sorry to hear of his passing,” she said quietly. “The last time I saw him, I asked him to pass on my wishes to you. Did he mention it? I don’t suppose you remember me, do you? It was so long ago.” Belanna looked from her to me and back again.

“You two have already met?” she asked. She played with the weight on the scale, the way she did when Paris flirted with her before installing a PIC line in a patient.

Janeway looked at me and smiled in a way that might almost have been a smirk if I had known her better, and then turned to Belanna. “We met in college,” she said. “A long, long time ago.” She smiled to herself. “Robert was much better at chemistry than I was,” she admitted.

“No surprises there,” Belanna said. “Mr. Ivy League. We keep telling him he needs to take the darn test and get prescription privileges already.”

“You’d have to send me across the border,” I joked. “Can’t do it yet in Arizona.”

“Ah, yes,” Janeway said. “I forgot. Psychologists can get privileges in New Mexico. Fascinating. I wonder you don’t consider it.”

“No need thus far,” I said with a shrug. “As long as my father was alive, I’d tell him what I thought was going on with a psych patient and he’d write the prescription for me.”

“Was that ethical?” she asked, a bit too abruptly.

Belanna interrupted. “Chakotay knows psychopharmacology like the back of his hand,” she said sharply. “He used to teach it at ASU. And I prescribe too, I’m an NP. He knows what’s what.”

“I’m not surprised he knows chemistry,” Janeway said with almost a purr in her voice. “I’d always wondered what had happened to you,” she said to me. “You disappeared after Chem 102.”

“Here I am,” I said, with false joviality. “Came back home to the Rez. Old story, not much to tell.”

“Oh, I’m sure there is more to it than that, isn’t there, Ms. Torres?” she asked. Belanna stared at her guardedly.

“Where are you staying, Dr. Janeway?” I asked, hoping to change the topic and extricate myself from what, to my surprise, felt like an increasingly tense interaction between these two women. “I have to get to my private practice now, but if you need anything over the long weekend, I’m sure Belanna can point you to it, can’t you, Belanna?” Belanna glared at me.

“I’m going rock climbing all weekend with Harry,” she said. “Heading out of town tonight. Sorry, Dr. Janeway, I wish I could be more helpful, but…” She didn’t even aim for sincerity in her voice. The other woman looked hurt.

“I found a vacation rental,” Janeway said quickly. “You won’t believe how affordable ski condos are this time of year. Shouldn’t be hard to find my way to a grocery store around here.”

Out of pity I said: “I get out at eight tonight. If that’s not too late for you—”

She interrupted me. “Thank you, Dr. Chakotay, but I’ve had a long day and I’m very tired. I won’t keep the two of you any longer.” She paused. “I know it must be a surprise, me dropping in like this. Sorry I didn’t give you more warning.”

“It’s good to see you again,” I said before I could think twice. “The years have been kind to you.”

She laughed, husky and dark, and turned to leave.

I liked the sound of her laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I have visited the Four Corners area several times but most of my knowledge of the Hopi comes from Internet searches and extrapolated from my own experiences working with other poor communities. No disrespect is intended and I am open to any corrections/feedback on the topic. 
> 
> On a personal note, these two were the first pairing I ever shipped, back in 1995 when my teenage self waited eagerly every week for a new episode of Voyager (no binge watching back then!). I'm feeling particularly nostalgic as I write this couple over twenty years later, with a more adult view in mind.
> 
> Rating is likely to change as I usually write fanfic for the over-18 crowd.


	2. Chapter 2

She stayed for a week and came back at the beginning of July to begin as the Flagstaff Clinic’s director. We saw a lot of each other that first month at work, as I had been in charge of operations for almost a year and now finally got to turn that over to someone else and, hopefully, focus more on my clinical practice again. I usually spend four days a week in Flagstaff and three in Second Mesa, but Dr. Janeway’s calendar would be slightly different as she wouldn’t be seeing weekly patients and could have some more flexibility when it came to scheduling. Flagstaff was where we had the main clinic, the surgical equipment, even a bed or two for the occasional overnight patient; Second Mesa was, and had always been, the outpost on the Reservation. But, as my father liked to see it, even if it was smaller, Second Mesa had always been the heart of the work. It was where he did all his major public health projects – the new wells and irrigation systems, the desert gardens, the children’s running club. The Navajo and Hopi reservation had produced state champion track teams for the last two decades, and it was no coincidence that many of those runners came from the area around Second Mesa.

Kolopak was more than a doctor – he was an entrepreneur, a visionary, a community healer. The first Native American to complete an MD-PhD, he had gone to Dartmouth on the same Indian scholarship that I had, had stayed for medical school and the PhD, and as soon as he graduated he had surprised everyone by not going into academic medicine but by returning to Flagstaff, marrying his nurse, and promptly starting a family and a practice with the Indian Health Service. He stayed involved in research only peripherally until he was able to start quantifying and publishing the results from his community health project at Second Mesa, got a series of NIH grants, and from that the journal articles and accolades swiftly followed.

Janeway, too, it appeared, had initially pursued a career in academic medicine before, surprisingly, ditching the PhD, moving to Oakland, and practicing family medicine at a community clinic affiliated with UCSF for about ten years. She was involved in some of the early research on adverse childhood experiences, though it was her colleague at UCSF, Tuvaq Ali, who was better known in that area. It seemed that Janeway, like myself, preferred the clinical grind to the academic treadmill, and had deliberately chosen to limit her involvement in research.

When she told me of her choices, I had wondered – as one does wonder, seeing an attractive woman of a certain age – why she had not married, why she had not had any children herself given how much she seemed to care for them. I saw the way she took seriously each child who came into the clinic, and saw how her eyes lingered after them when they left her office. From Belanna later I gathered that I had been mistaken, that Dr. Janeway _had_ been married once, or nearly so. Apparenty she’d broken off her engagement to a Berkeley philosopher professor not long before coming to Flagstaff, but it would take many more months before I would hear this from Kathryn herself. The initial prickliness between herself and Belanna had worn off as the strident feminist in Belanna overcame the strident Chicano/Indian rights activist, and the more she heard about the doctor’s views on the Dakota Access protests, the more she liked her. So Belanna, rather than Kathryn, was my initial source of information on our new director’s proclivities and pastimes.

Admittedly, in those first few months I was still in mourning, that and trying to focus on transferring the clinic administration to her and taking on more psychotherapy patients for myself, both in the clinics and at my private practice. All that, and I was spending most of my weekends with Sekaya and Leslie anyway, so I wasn’t in a place to be anything other than a colleague to her. We were always very cordial to each other at work, and if we enjoyed the occasional home visit together on the days she was at Second Mesa – she didn’t have a four-wheel drive vehicle yet, and I was more than happy to show her around the Rez when we needed to visit an elderly patient together – part of me was wary of giving too much of myself, of being too friendly of a guide for her as she adapted to this new place. _Let her find her own way,_ I thought. I had seen too many outsiders pass through the Four Corners area, too many humanitarians and hippies and artists and yes, most of them were White like she was, and that had something to do with my hesitance too. Paris was the first White person to work at the clinics, but he was born and raised in Tuba City, so that said something. People around here knew him, people accepted him. I figured the IHS knew what they were doing in sending her here, at least on paper, but I didn’t know yet if Janeway was more Sedona or Scottsdale than Second Mesa. She had gone to Dartmouth, after all, and I suspected _she_ hadn’t gotten in on scholarship.

Kathryn – she had asked me to call her Kathryn, by this point – surprised me when, out of the blue, she asked me what my Labor Day plans were and when I said I had none – Sekaya and Leslie were doing the college tour thing – she invited me to go hiking with her. “That is, if you don’t mind going somewhere I’m sure you’ve been a hundred times before.”

“Where’s that?” I asked, certain that she was going to suggest the Grand Canyon and already a little disappointed in her. She surprised me, however.

“Canyon de Chelly, Chakotay,” she said. I had insisted early on that she drop the _Robert_ , as no one but my grandmother, who was sent to government boarding school as a child, had ever called me Robert. “I went there a month ago and thought I’d try hiking it again a little later in the day, when the sun is lower in the sky. What do you say? Want to join me?” Her voice was shy, hesitant, and I wondered fleetingly if this might be considered a date. I brushed off the idea as ridiculous, as clearly Kathryn was more interested in stretching her legs in a pretty place than in getting to know the clinic shrink.

I accepted her invitation and even found myself enjoying her company. She wasn’t as uptight one-on-one as she was at work – I was surprised when she asked me to help her rub the sunscreen on her back, but all in all it felt very chaste and brother-and-sisterly, chatting about work and patients and, as the afternoon progressed, about our college days. It turned out we knew many of the same people, although she had graduated before I did, and we had both been on the squash club, though different years. I hadn’t thought about Dartmouth in a long time, relegating it to that part of my memory better forgotten.

She surprised me when she told me she’d hated it there, her first two years. “I had clinical depression,” she confided. “It didn’t get better until I went to Argentina on study abroad and started seeing a psychoanalyst.”

I stared at her back, wondering if I had heard her correctly. I didn’t know how to respond to her. Was she telling me this because I was a psychologist, and she wanted my ear? Certainly enough strangers and friends over the years had used me for the same purpose, but I preferred to keep my work life separate from my personal life, and I usually tried to change the topic when these kinds of confessions came my way. I knew too much about mental illness and despair to be entirely surprised by them, having half-guessed these truths beforehand, but usually such confirmations made me uncomfortable.

I still felt uncertain of what to say to Kathryn, but I felt touched rather than repelled by her revelation. She had already told me she spoke Spanish fluently, and I knew that was one of the selling points in her getting this job, as our Flagstaff clinic was getting so many Spanish-speaking patients these days that it behooved us to have a medical director who spoke Spanish, so this explained the Spanish. It also explained why she didn’t have any of the usual scorn or suspicion of PCPs towards psychologists or our patients; rather, she had always seemed deeply respectful of my work and interested in it.

In my nervousness I found myself responding to the least important part of what she had said. “Oh yes, in Argentina they are quite into psychoanalysis, aren’t they?” I heard myself saying. “Freudian, mostly, with some of the French school thrown in for good measure.”

“You’d know more about it than I do,” she said. “All I know is that it worked for me.” We both let the moment, and her vulnerability, pass. “Look, there are the ruins – what are those called again?”

“Mummy Cave,” I told her. “We can’t get much closer, but you can see them pretty well from here.” I pointed out the construction of the walls, told her how recent genetic testing has confirmed that the Hopi and Navajo are descended from these canyon-dwellers. “My father liked learning that,” I shared. “He had always suspected as much, it’s part of the oral history of our people, but a lot can get misconstrued over the years.”

“I’m sure it was very satisfying to learn more about your origins,” she said with a touch of envy in her voice.

“Honestly, it wouldn’t have mattered much to me if they’d discovered some Martian origin. I’m more interested in the narrative than in the genes. You know,” I drawled, “I did that National Geographic genetic testing a few years ago, before my father died. We all did it, hoping we’d be contributing some more indigenous American DNA because the genetic databases are all full of Europeans and their descendants. Turns out – no surprise – that we are about one-half European, mostly Spanish to be precise, with some English thrown in too.”

“My friend Tuvaq, who’s Black, had a similar finding from his tests,” she shared. “He was somewhat dismayed to learned that probably a third of his ancestors were from Great Britain, like mine.” I tried to figure out the math in my head; surely it had to be a multiple of two? Half or a quarter? _Not important,_ I reminded myself, shaking off the figures to focus on her.

“It’s only the Whites who aren’t mixed in this country,” I told her, smiling tightly. “One-drop rule, remember?” She smiled, rather grimly. “But I’m not ashamed to be European too,” I said boldly. “The history of the Americas has always been one of migration. They say some of my ancestors crossed a land bridge long ago; others came by boat more recently. I still say I’m from _here_ ,” pointing to the earth. “I’m Hopi first – that’s what matters. So what if part of being Hopi is being Spanish and English too? Isn’t _that_ as much a part of the history of this continent?”

“So you’re not a purist?” she asked. “You don’t wish you were one hundred percent Hopi?”

“Can’t afford to be a purist,” I blurted out, excited to be talking about this topic, which I had argued about so often with Seska. “It doesn’t reflect reality. My people have always had children born of rapes and misadventures and miscegenation. Green-eyed, brown-eyed – we’re still Hopi. The story is more important than the material it’s made of. We are from _here,_ this land.” I spread my arm towards the ruins, rather grandly, I thought, and then I became shy of what she would think of me.

“I would hope some of those children were born of love, too,” she said so softly I could hardly hear her.

“One can only hope,” I said, with more cynicism in my voice. There could be no love between my people and hers, Seska would have said – Seska who claimed to be pure Navajo, Seska who had espoused the kind of racial purity best fitted to early 20th century eugenics. We had disagreed on more than one occasion over this, and I found it strange to now be discussing racial histories with a White woman who seemed to understand more of such matters than Seska, with her rigid ideologies, had ever comprehended.

It was not the first time Kathryn had surprised me, but it stands out for what happened next.

“Would you have preferred another Indian to head the clinic?” she asked me bluntly, her voice slightly strained from the exertion of the hike.

I didn’t know how to respond. I would have preferred she had stuck with percentages and genes and figures, which were far easier to wrap our heads around. The cool impartialities of numbers, something my father had always appreciated, something I had learned from him – this I would have preferred, if I were to be honest.

Instead I took her hand. I don’t know what got into me: maybe the heat, maybe the excitement of talking about my history, maybe the beauty of the Canyon when the late light of afternoon turned the rocks red and the shadows crimson. I don’t know why I touched her then, but I took her hand, pulled her closer to me and grabbed her other hand, and looked into her eyes. “Kathryn,” I said. “I think they knew what they were doing when they hired you.” Then I dropped her hands, as if a hot potato, and turned to begin the long walk up the canyon.

It was nearly dusk when we approached the top of the canyon. Kathryn took long, low strides up the final incline of the trail. The exertion had made it difficult to continue our conversation on the way up, so we had fallen into silence. I let her lead the way, worried that she might be slower than I was, unaccustomed to these trails. I needn’t have worried, she appeared to have the stamina of the marathoner and – I couldn’t help thinking – the gait of a dancer, as her hips swayed back and forth in front of her and her sturdy feet picked their way up the path. I was staring at my boss’s ass. I was actually staring at my boss’s ass, and from the way she looked back at my from time to time, I’m not sure that she minded. Maybe she was lonely; I knew that I was.

We reached my Jeep as the first stars came out. Kathryn offered me the last of her water bottle, and my fingers brushed over hers as she handed it to me. She looked particularly lovely in the starlight, I thought, particularly young and feminine; she could have been the chemistry student who shared her notes with me, all those years ago. Had I ever wanted to kiss her then, I wondered, in the same way I wanted to kiss her now? She had been a college crush, one of so many I had had back in those days when half of my mind was preoccupied with biochem and half with getting laid. Had she stood out to me in any way then, except by the fact of her distant beauty and her brains? I remembered my college girlfriend, Nicole, more clearly, remembered the way I had lost my virginity to her one warm fall evening after she invited me to an event at the Black Student Union. No, Kathryn had played little role in my college experience, but here she was again, the years returning to both of us, a figure from the past who, rather than retreating in the distant night, re-emerged more clearly and more preciously to me this time.

I walked around to the passenger door and opened it for her, enjoying the look of surprise in her face at my gesture. “You don’t have to open the door for me, Chakotay,” she said, but it sounded like she didn’t mean it.

“What if I want to?” I asked her, the joy rising in my chest. “I don’t care if you think me old-fashioned.” She climbed in the car and I shut the door gently after her.

Kathryn was uncharacteristically quiet on the drive back to Second Mesa, and I let her be. She’d rented a small, clean house on my cousin Miranda’s property, and after I dropped off Kathryn I stopped by at Miranda’s.

“How’s the new doctor?” Miranda asked, when I told her why I was nearby. “Word is she’s not too bad.”

“Is that what they’re saying?” I asked wryly. “Could be a lot worse, then. She’s all right, Miranda. We’re still getting to know each other. There’s a lot for her to learn about us, but so far I’d say she’s doing well enough here.”

Miranda chuckled. “You always were so restrained in your praise, Chakotay,” she said. “Might as well tell me the truth. You like her, don’t you?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Most people don’t go an hour out of their way to take their boss home,” she pointed out. “Especially when she’s got her own truck now.” She pointed out her window but it was too dark to see.

So Kathryn had her own truck now, and hadn’t told me yet. Funny, that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for mentions of suicide in this chapter.

The next time I saw Kathryn was at the Second Mesa Clinic the following Friday. Our schedules had been off for a while, and we hadn’t coincided for more than an afternoon at either clinic for a few weeks.

It had been a long day, one patient after the other, and I was about to head out for the evening when my intercom rang. “Chakotay?” she asked. “Can you come by my office for a psych consult?”

“Sure,” I said. “What’s it about?”

“The patient is here and I think it’s better if she tells you herself.”

“Be right there,” I said, pushing away from my desk and heading down the hall.

I knocked on her door and Kathryn opened it. Sitting on the exam table was a young woman, still almost a child, extremely thin and tired-looking.

“Hello, Valentina,” I said, then turned to Kathryn. “I know her, Dr. Janeway. She’s been a patient here for a long time. What is going on today?”

Janeway looked me. “I’m concerned that she’s going to kill herself,” she said, not mincing any words.

“How have you been doing, Valentina?” I asked the patient as gently as possible. Tears began to spill down her cheeks but her face remained absolutely still.

“Is it all right if I tell Dr. Chakotay what you told me?” Janeway asked her. Valentina nodded. I passed her a tissue but it remained in her hand. “You said you’ve been thinking about killing yourself, and you were planning on using a rope tonight.” Janeway glanced significantly at me. “We want to make sure you remain safe, Valentina,” she said, firmly but kindly “Part of our job is to keep people safe. Is it OK if we call your parents?”

“Valentina lives with her grandmother,” I interrupted. I knew that her mother had left her when she was a child and her father was in prison. He was due to get out soon, if I remembered correctly, and I wondered if that had anything to do with Valentina’s distress.

“Don’t call my grandmother!” Valentina said. “I don’t want her to know.”

“How do you think she’ll respond?” Janeway asked. Smart move – Valentina might have good reason to not want to involve her granny.

“She’s sick and I don’t want to upset her,” Valentina whispered.

“Does she need an appointment at the clinic?” I asked her. She shook her head.

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think she wants to come back. She doesn’t see the point.”

I looked at Kathryn. “Let’s pay a house visit to Mrs. Segovia later this week,” I suggested. “But for now, let’s focus on keeping you safe, Valentina.”

Between the three of us we came up with a safety plan that seemed plausible – Valentina would call me tonight if she felt the urge to harm herself, and she would come back tomorrow to check in with me and start some brief psychotherapy. Valentina would stay with her mother’s sister tonight, and I called Sharon from the office to make sure she knew about the situation. Janeway wrote her a prescription for a few Ativan to help her take the edge of her anxiety, and suggested Valentina start an anti-depressant tomorrow morning. We waited for Sharon to come and pick up Val, and then Janeway invited me back to her office to debrief.

“Had you considered hospitalization?” she asked. “She had a plan, after all.”

“Plan but no clear intent,” I said. “She wouldn’t have gone willingly and I don’t think we could argue that she warranted an involuntary hospitalization. Besides, I prefer not to hospitalize my patients unless absolutely necessary. That’s happened too many times in our history –”

“—You mean institutionalization?” she interrupted.

“Exactly. Hospitals, boarding schools, prison, the military. The form is different but the purpose is the same.” I paused and looked at her. “Memory is long here, mistrust is high. I’d prefer to keep a tight rein on my patients. Keep them out of the hospital. Plus, they can’t afford it, and they’ll spend the next few months dealing with red tape at the welfare office.”

“So that’s why you gave her your cell phone?” she asked. She looked tired and on-edge, and I remembered other primary care docs I had worked with who had been uncomfortable with suicidal or psychotic patients. I wondered if the encounter had taken more out of her than she was letting on.

“I’d rather get a call in the middle of the night than have Valentina in a hospital in Flagstaff,” I explained. “Besides, Sharon will keep good watch on her. She has to.”

“I hope she will,” Kathryn said curtly. “God, I wish we had better psychiatric services out here! Something besides you and me and Torres and one mobile crisis unit for the entire Navajo Nation!”

“This is what we have,” I said with as much patience as I could muster. “And don’t be mistaken: we do pretty well with what we have. We haven’t lost anyone to suicide in a long time.” I was proud of the work we did at Second Mesa and a bit irritated that she seemed to find it inadequate. Then I remembered: as poor as parts of Oakland had been, it had many more options for care than we had out here, and it looked like it was still taking Kathryn some time to adjust.

“Guess I’m still missing the Bay Area,” she said, as if reading my mind. “It just feels, sometimes, like this clinic is the only thing keeping these people from utter sickness and despair.”

I felt my eyes narrowing. “I hardly think we’re their saviors,” I said, particularly sensitive to that ideology. “We do what we can, when we can, but they decide when to use our services. And there is plenty of healing happening outside of here too. They have other options and believe me when I say that sometimes those other options do a world more good than anything we can offer.” She looked crestfallen and I regretted the heatedness of my words. “Relax, Kathryn. You did good work today. We have a plan for Valentina. Hopefully it will be enough.”

“Next time they can take my number and call me instead,” she blurted out. “I don’t want you on 24-hour shift every time someone endorses suicidal ideation.” I felt the urge to take her hands again, she was wringing them so frantically. Instead I thanked her as graciously as I could and stood up, heading towards the door.

“Would you like to come to my place for dinner tonight, Chakotay?” she asked. “It’s late and I don’t feel like another frozen meal.”

Another suggestion to spend time together that might not mean anything more than that. Perhaps she felt the need to further debrief after our patient today; perhaps she was just lonely and didn’t want to spend another Friday evening alone.

On the other hand, it did sound suspiciously like a date.

"Unfortunately,"  I said, "I already made plans with my sister for tonight. But what about tomorrow evening, at my place instead? I have a lot of vegetables ready to harvest, don’t want to let them go to waste. We can cook together.”

“I’d like that,” she said, almost shyly. “Can I bring anything?”

I grinned at her. “Just yourself.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

Driving home through the desert the next afternoon, I felt excited that she was going to see my house and I didn’t even have to suggest it to her. 

It was one of those long, low modernist homes so popular in the Southwest, all right angles and open living spaces and natural materials, and its large windows provided ample views of the desert on all sides. My nearest neighbor was half a mile down the road, so it was the ideal retreat when I needed a break from my patients and the medical bureaucracy of the IHS. I had finished building it about eight years ago but kept working on little details here and there – natural wood floors, an outdoor kitchen with adobe oven, an irrigated vegetable garden and orchard, a stone-walled master bath and an outdoor cistern, a Spanish-style  _pila_. My private practice in Flagstaff had paid for the building expenses and labor.

I wondered what Kathryn would think of it, and hoped she’d be impressed by it – most people were. 

I took a quick shower to clean myself of the grime of the day; I'd worked in the garden that morning, then gone hiking alone in the afternoon. After the shower I changed into a comfortable pair of gray slacks and a white guayabera shirt that I had bought in the Yucatán last year during a conference on indigenous psychologies. I didn’t know what kind of music Kathryn would like, so I left my stereo off and went straight to the garden. Tomatoes, zucchinis, onions – these would go great on the grill. I had some sirloin in the fridge and I started the water boiling for rice.

I was just putting on an apron and getting into the rhythm of cleaning and chopping the vegetables when Kathryn arrived. She knocked on the front door and I called for her to come in, my hands were dirty, and she let herself in through the foyer. She was wearing clothes I'd never seen her in before, and her makeup looked newly applied. Her face and neck and arms looked especially golden in the white cotton dress she had chosen for herself; I liked the way it showed off her tiny waist and fit snugly around her breasts.

“Sorry I’m late,” she panted. “I went down your neighbor’s drive by mistake.” She handed a bottle of wine to me. “You said I didn’t need to bring anything, but I wanted to be a proper guest.”

“You’re welcome just as you are,” I said smoothly, smiling at her, enjoying how beautiful she looked. I noticed her looking at my apron and my rolled-up sleeves.

“Can I help with anything?” she asked.

“It’s mostly done,” I said, putting the wine in the refrigerator. “Nothing fancy, just throwing some stuff on the grill. You can make yourself at home—” I pointed to a stool by the counter “—and tell me what kind of music you like.”

God, how long had it been since I’d had a woman over for dinner who wasn’t a relative? How long had it been since I’d gotten laid? At least three years since Seska left, I calculated. Three years in which my father’s health had declined and I’d put my personal life on hold to care for him, three years where the only changes I’d made to the home were the vegetables I’d planted and the fruit trees I’d kept pruned.

“My tastes are pretty eclectic,” she said. “I’m sure I’d like anything you put on.”

“Is Motown all right to start?” I asked. She laughed.

“I would have taken you for a jazz aficionado,” she said sultrily.

“Who’s to say I’m not?” I flirted back. “We can save the jazz for later. Let’s start with something lighter.” I went to the stereo to adjust the controls. “Meanwhile, why don’t you have a glass of wine and let me show you around.” I poured two glasses of red and handed one to her. Our fingers touched and she pulled back from me slightly, nursing the glass to her chest.

She hopped off the stool and walked from the open kitchen into the living area, slowly approaching the long window with the northern exposure. “You must hear this all the time, Chakotay,” she said breathily. “But this view is gorgeous.” I grinned but she was turned from me and couldn’t see my face. “No, seriously,” she continued. “This  _house._ The location, the design – it’s really exceptional.” She took a sip of wine and I watched her swallow, her long neck elegant and strong.

“I’m glad you think so,” I said, almost bursting with pride.  _She liked it_.

“Reminds me of a friend’s home in the Berkeley Hills,” she said, crossing the room and coming to stand next to me. “Look at those beams!”, she exclaimed, pointing overhead.

“Reclaimed from an old church,” I explained. “Took me ages to find the right ones but it was worth it in the end.”

“Do you mind if I see the rest of the house, Chakotay?” she asked. “Will you give me a tour?” I pulled the apron off and laid it over the sofa.

“This is the main living area,” I began. “I wanted an open floor design for the living room and kitchen. The bedrooms are down that way—,” I pointed to my right, “—and there’s a studio on the other side. It’s small, just two bedrooms, but I wanted a smaller footprint out here in the desert.” She was pacing in front of the fireplace, examining the large mesquite branch that I had hung over the hearth. “Something I found on a hike,” I said. “I like to bring a bit of the desert in here with me.”

She settled down onto the sofa, nestling against the cushions. “Real leather, too, and wool blankets – god, Chakotay, this house is to die for. You could list it for a vacation rental and name your price.”

“It’s kind of out of the way for that,” I said. “But that’s the whole point.” I felt an unreasonable amount of pride at her admiration of my house. The grin on my face must have looked ridiculous. What were we doing, my showing off my house to her and letting her get a good look at it? She couldn't stop raving, and I was as titillated as if she were telling me she liked my cock. I wanted her hands on my skin instead of caressing my leather sofa like that.

“A desert retreat?” she asked.

“Something like that,” I said. “I value my privacy. I wouldn't feel comfortable with others staying here.”

I sat down next to her and she put her legs up on the footstool. I liked the perfume she was wearing, it smelled fresh yet musky too, and I liked the shade of lipstick she had chosen. I couldn’t get over how beautiful she was, and how much I wanted her. It was funny – she wasn’t my type, I usually went for brunettes who were a bit curvier than she was, a little rougher or earthier. Thinking back, though I hadn't planned it that way, I hadn’t slept with a White woman since grad school. I wondered if her nipples were shell-pink or colored like tannin; I wondered if her ribs were as freckled as her nose, and I imagined she would let the hair between her legs grow into a curly, wild mess, no razors or hot wax for her. When I thought about her naked I pictured her sitting by the _pila_  on a hot day, her lean legs glistening with sweat, her breasts heavy and full, her pink cunt exposed as opened her legs and sat back on the edge, letting her feet dangle in the water.

I had to remind myself of how inappropriate it was for me to be thinking of my boss like this.

God, it had been far too long since I’d had sex. She could probably tell I was aroused just by sitting next to her.

Kathryn was not my type and then she was exactly my type: smart and strong and stubborn, independent. I wanted to tame her, wanted to tease her and make her cry out and beg for it, and I chided myself for these thoughts as well, for their conventional misogyny.

I couldn’t help myself – I turned towards her, about to say something, do something, anything, and then she stood up, nearly tripping over the ottoman in her hurry to get to the kitchen.

“I’m starving, Chakotay!” she said. “Let me know where the grill is and I’ll get things started.”

I set up the grill and we cooked and ate together on the deck. The sunset came quickly – September’s light changes so suddenly after the long twilights of summer – and we talked mostly about our patients and the clinic and her search for a house to buy near Flagstaff. Lots of conversation about location and design, mortgages and renovations, and more trips inside to show her a special detail or point out a flaw I hoped to fix. The house as object, as subject of conversation, as focus of our shared attention – it was easier, I sensed, than talking about what was so obvious to me: that this was a romantic dinner, that she had come into my space for a purpose, that both of us were wondering if the other would be the one to make the first step.

For some reason, I felt like I was in no hurry. I always love this stage in a relationship, this early courtship: the sharing of ideas and histories, the sussing out of values and preferences, the languor of flirtation without consummation. I wanted to draw it out and at the same time wanted to make it clear to her what it was that I wanted: that I wanted her. I wanted her to imagine me later tonight when she returned alone to her own house, and to wonder at what kind of lover I would make. I wanted to leave her with that suspense; I looked forward to the slow seduction of Kathryn Janeway. And so I continued to flirt with her, and brush a little too close, and let her lean a little against me on the sofa after dinner, as we shared a peach from the garden. I wiped the juice off her chin with a napkin, let her do the same to me, and I let my gaze linger on her mouth, her hands, her breasts.

It was nearly ten o’clock when she made sounds that she should head home, her last glass of wine finished several hours before. I accompanied her to the hallway and opened the closet, got her coat out, helped her put it on. She had left her shoes outside and I followed her to the steps, closed the door behind us. The dark night smelled like sage and Spanish pepper trees, like the fresh water of the cistern and the warm, dark earth.

Kathryn bent to put on her sandals and when she stood up again I took her in my arms and kissed her. I don’t think she was surprised by my kiss, in fact I think she was anticipating it by the eager way in which she opened her mouth to mine and spread her fingers over the back of my neck. We stood there a while in the dark merely kissing, breaths exchanging, her hands on my neck and mine around her narrow waist, as if we were teenagers at a dance. Maybe we were teenagers then, for just a moment: eighteen or nineteen again, that surge of lust at the newness of physical love, that enrapture with the Other: her pale skin against my darker hands, her hair still bright, somehow, in the starlight. I gathered my hands against her hips and pushed her towards her car, feeling every inch the young man kissing a girl against the still-warm hood, her hot breath lighting up my mouth and my groin.

“Kathryn,” I gasped, spreading her name into more syllables than it ought to have had. “Kath-ah-ryn –” Her mouth was so sweet, so eager under mine, and her breasts, when she began to press against my chest – I might as well have been an adolescent again, in awe of this golden girl, exactly the sort of woman who had been unattainable for perhaps eighty percent of my adult life. Percentages again, to distract from the warmth and the sweetness – what other word could I use? – of this woman under me. “Kathryn – I mean,” I stuttered, pulling back.

“Shut up,” she ordered. “Shut up, Chakotay.” And so we kissed some more, at her permission, and I forgot that she was supposed to be my superior and supposed to be some sort of replacement for my father – what a field day Freud would have had with this, I thought: for I very much would have liked to have heard the old fellow’s opinion on this, if this was some way of getting back at my father –  _just how well had she known him, after all?_ – or if she was a sublimated version of my own mother, who had died just when I had met Kathryn the first time?

 _Too much interpretation and not enough action_ , I told myself. A beautiful woman was in my arms, sighing and pressing against me, apparently all too eager for this to proceed further, and I was lost in my thoughts again and not willing to take it beyond these shared breaths, these light caresses, her arms around mine and my groin safely out of the way.

“You should get going, Kathryn,” I said. “It’s nearly forty minutes back to Second Mesa,” I told her between kisses, my forehead pressed to hers. “And two hours to Flagstaff.”

“I notice you’re not inviting me in,” she said, her voice low and dangerous. She lifted her neck to me, and I kissed it. I loved the sounds she made, precious sighs and eager breaths, her mouth open, vulnerable. I wondered what sounds she’d make when I made love to her. There would be time for that.

 _I’ve already invited you in,_ I thought.  _More than you know._

“I’ll see you on Monday in Flagstaff?” I asked instead. She pulled away, scanned my face with her eyes, put her hands to my cheeks, and chastely kissed my lips.

“On Monday, then,” she said, and turned away, getting into her car herself.

I watched the lights from her car retreat until she took the first bend in the road and the night was dark again.


	5. Chapter 5

I suspected Kathryn was avoiding me when I didn’t see her at Second Mesa on Tuesday, nor at Flagstaff the rest of the week. She made her own schedule, and apparently she had arranged her shifts so that they didn’t overlap with mine. When the same thing happened the following week, I grew annoyed that she was not even willing to see me and talk about it, whatever “it” was.

Much later she would tell me that she had been facing a sort of moral self-inquisition during those two weeks, in which she consulted everyone from the Indian Health Service HR department to the AMA Ethics Office to determine how ethical it was for a practicing physician and clinic director to become romantically involved with a psychologist on her staff. She had even consulted with her friend Tuvaq, who was known for his work on bioethics, but his expertise lay more in human subjects research.

She was asked to consider a number of factors. For one thing, she was my administrative superior, but she did not practice in my field and nor was she supervising my clinical work, therefore she would normally have been expected to let me practice according to my profession’s own ethical and legal standards and was not personally responsible for my work. Second, we were not in a doctor-patient relationship or supervisor-supervisee relationship, which certainly would have been unethical in my field and ill-advised, to say the least, in hers, so that taboo was clearly null. Third, a relationship between us could still be considered a “dual role,” and therefore should be considered very carefully.

Suffice it to say, Kathryn didn’t get a clear answer “no”, but neither did she get the go-ahead from any party. Rather, the advice was “ _proceed with caution_ ” and “ _only under exceptional circumstances_ ,” both of which could be interpreted more or less liberally, depending on how invested you were in the relationship in question.

For myself, I took the question to my analyst and to my sister, Sekaya.

My therapist wanted to explore the source of attraction I felt towards Dr. Janeway – why her and why now?— after three years in which I hadn’t dated and hadn’t felt any urge to do so. What was so desirable about her that I would risk the integrity of the Second Mesa and Flagstaff clinics, for a relationship that might take down my father’s legacy and my life’s work along with it, if it failed?

I struggled to convey to Ana that what I felt for Kathryn was more than an infatuation, but I was not convinced myself yet. I am slow to fall in love, fast to lust after others, and my feelings towards Kathryn had not yet revealed themselves to be anything more profound than sexual attraction among old acquaintances, now made closer through shared work we were both passionate about.

Sekaya was also interested in what I saw in Kathryn and she sensed, even as my analyst had not, how part of me was drawn to the conquest of someone who, on paper, was not the obvious match for someone like me. Kathryn was intelligent, well-educated, poised, elegant, flirtatious. She obviously came of privilege – her father had been a medical dean at Harvard – but she had devoted her professional career to working in poor communities. And, despite Dartmouth and my _magna_ , despite graduate school and my Ph.D., part of me still felt like I would never belong in her world, would always be that bit of rough that women like her were happy to sleep with but reluctant to date, much less marry. And if I were honest with myself, I knew that the only thing that would persuade me to date again right now was the potential of marriage some day. I was tired of being alone. I wanted a family; I wanted a partner.

Attention from a woman like Kathryn – a White woman, I might as well acknowledge that – was likely to go to my head if I didn’t keep my wits about me, was likely to go to my head and distract me from my values and my goals for myself. After all, I didn’t particularly care for being the sort of Indian who was drawn to White women because of the power and belongingness they conveyed.

I was reminded of an anecdote in Silko’s book, _Ceremony_ , about the Indian recruits in World War Two who were so excited to find out that, once they put on an army uniform, White women who would have glanced right through them, suddenly were ready to dance and flirt and have sex with these gob-smacked boys from the Rez. Those same men, years later, would boast to friends at home, friends who could not or would not enlist, that they had slept with a blonde or a red-head, or a peach-skinned girl from Sacramento, collecting the memories of those pale women like prizes when all that remained of their noble service were the nightmares and the diagnosis and the war pension.

I didn’t want to like Kathryn just because she was White, I explained to Sekaya, but I also didn’t want to pull away from her merely because there was some kind of exotic-is-erotic dynamic going on between the two of us. But even without knowing Kathryn’s thoughts on it, I did suspect that race was a much bigger deal for me here than it was for her -- “Which makes perfect sense,” Sekaya pointed out, “as White people have the luxury of not thinking about their race. The rest of us brown and black folks hold that burden.” But that wasn’t quite it, either. Not only was I caught up in the racial aspects of my attraction to her, I was overthinking whether I was actually attracted to her in the first place, or just the idea of her.

It took me going back to my analyst again for her to point out to me that this was an awful lot of fantasy and speculation – a lot of being in my head – and not much of the woman herself. _What did Kathryn like?_ she wanted to know. _What kinds of hobbies, what histories did she have? Who was she?_

Ana’s questions caught me short, my breath stuck in my throat. Here I was, analyzing all the meaning that race had, the structural inequalities perpetuated by her people on mine, etc., and I was overlooking the person herself. How many times had I reminded our trainees to look for the person behind the demographics? – and here I was, losing sight of Kathryn already.

I left my session determined to see her again, and soon. It was too late to call or text her – we weren’t on such intimate terms, after all, and if I called her after-hours she would think it was about some crisis. Better to wait, bide my time a little longer, I thought.

Kathryn surprised me by showing up on Saturday morning at the foot of my lane at the Y pool in Flagstaff. I stopped at the end to adjust my goggles and saw a pair of feet in front of me. Kathryn was standing on the pool deck, hands on her hips, looking above me to the horizon.

“Morning, Chakotay,” she said in that rumbling voice of hers. “Nice day for a swim.” Seen from below, her legs were long and muscular, the turquoise of her swimsuit setting off her freckles and tanned skin. Before I could say a word, she slipped down into the water next to me, swim cap and goggles in hand. I had no idea if her appearance there was intentional, if she had sought me out somehow or if it was coincidence that she and I both found our way there that morning.

She grabbed the edge of the pool and turned towards me. “Mind if I join you? All the other lanes are full.”

I still couldn’t believe my luck and, naturally, invited her to share, _speak of the devil._

I had come to the pool to clear my head, to ponder what I should do next and, admittedly, to enjoy a fantasy or two of her, to allow the cool water on my bare skin to remind me of everything that was sensuous about her and our relationship. Before she had arrived, I was recalling the way she held her espresso cup at our morning meetings, cup nestled in her two hands, almost reverently, and had resolved to ask her out for coffee. It had been nearly half an hour’s reverie in the pool over Kathryn, but once Kathryn-in-the-flesh was in the water next to me sharing my lane, I couldn’t keep my head on straight. Surely my stroke suffered too, I thought, as I sputtered after my flip turn and had to readjust my goggles another time.

Swimming is not a very social activity – one of the reasons I like it, after the intensity of providing psychotherapy all day – but there was an intimacy in sharing a lane together, in watching for Kathryn as she completed a lap and passed me on the other side; of timing my strokes to hers or holding back at the flip turn so I wouldn't overtake her. Eventually I did – overtake her, I mean, because I was the faster and more experienced swimmer – but I made sure to pass her as swiftly as possible, to not disturb her in the least way until I was at the other side and she was coming up behind me, and I realized she had just been warming up whereas I was cooling down, and soon I felt the wake at my side and sensed her beside me, her strokes strong and sure. I pushed harder to keep up with her and then we were swimming side by side, neck and neck, she a whirl of green and gold as she passed me again and reached the wall before me. A race! I rallied and caught up with her, stayed next to her for another fifty meters and gave her enough room to do her flip turn next to mine. --- And then we were off again, racing down the lane, stroke against stroke to the next wall. She stopped then, grasped at the wall instead of turning, her grip tight on the gutter. I pulled up next to her and gave her the brightest smile I could muster between my heavy breaths.

“Want to grab lunch after this?”, was all she said, measuring me with her eyes before turning to the pool again to finish her workout.

We swam out of sync for the next fifteen minutes, the race largely run, and I got out before she did to sit in the spa and think some more. She found me when she was done, pointed to her bare wrist as if indicating the time, and asked if I was ready to leave.

I brought her to my favorite Mexican restaurant in Flagstaff. The conversation was chaste, restricted to work and our histories, no mention of the kisses we had shared several weeks ago or the fact that she possibly, maybe, most certainly had been avoiding me until now. I continued to observe her closely, heeding my therapist’s words, and was pleased by how much I _liked_ her, apart from the undeniable physical attraction. Kathryn was enthusiastic about nearly everything she talked about, charismatic in the extreme, and yet still made me feel like I was the only one she had ever spoken to in quite that tone. It was a skill that must have served her well as a clinician, that ability to focus her attention so closely on the other, to draw them in. I found myself sharing more with her than I had intended.

I told her more about my house and how I had built it. Kathryn listened attentively, it seemed, to every detail, her eyes drawing me in to say more and more. She was a good speaker but also knew how to listen, a rare quality and one that I was especially appreciative of given that I too often had to play the role of listener. Her interest in me turned me a bit heady, and I found myself speaking at rather more length than necessary about traditional building techniques and adobe ovens.

The waiter interrupted us to deliver our food.

“So, Chakotay,” she said without preamble, “as interesting as this is – and believe me, I _do_ find this interesting – it does strike me that there is something we aren’t talking about here.”

“What do you mean?” I asked cautiously, neutrally, a therapist’s question.

She huffed. “I mean, aren’t we ever going to talk about _us_?” She looked up at me under half-closed lids.

I took the bait. Not for nothing was I used to difficult conversations.

“Whenever you want,” I said, serving her a portion of Spanish rice. “Right now, if you prefer. I have nothing to hide.”

She looked at me sharply. “I can hardly believe that,” she said sardonically. “But I’ll let that slide. Chakotay, I’ve been thinking – about what happened at your house—”

“Forget it happened!”, I said abruptly, already knowing where this was headed.

“Are you going to let me speak?” she said, a bit testily. I nodded silently, bashfully, and she continued. “I’ve been thinking more about it – God, to tell you the truth, I haven’t _stopped_ thinking about it,” – I stared at her, flabbergasted. “I’m terrible at talking about this kind of thing, Chakotay. But given our situation, I think I have to.” She took a deep breath. “I think we need to establish some parameters.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

“What do you mean?” I asked, with more hostility than I had intended.

“I know how this looks,” she practically hissed at me. “It looks like we’re headed for trouble, if we continue with – with—”

I helped her with the appropriate euphemism. “With what happened ‘ _at my house’_ , as you put it?”

“Exactly,” she said, apparently relieved. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and I could smell the chlorine. “We need to establish some parameters.”

“What do you have in mind?” I asked carefully.

“Look, I know I’m the latecomer here, in Second Mesa and at the Flagstaff Clinic. You and you family have built them from the ground up, practically.” She paused. “I can’t let you risk them for me. If this – whatever _this_ is – doesn’t work – if we crash and burn, I mean - if there’s a falling out between us: _I_ will leave. You have my word.” She looked away from me, as if she had said too much, revealed too much.

I reached across the table and took her hand in mine, rubbed my thumb over her palm. “What makes you think we’ll crash and burn?” I asked.

“Oh, you know,” she said lightly, “prior experience of mine, that’s all.” She laughed bitterly and continued to look away.

I interlaced my fingers in hers, felt the urge to bring them to my lips but stopped short.

“Thank you,” I said. “This feels a bit too close to a prenup for my liking, but I am appreciative of you bringing this up.” That made her laugh.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Chakotay,” she warned, disengaging her hand from mine. “We’ve barely started yet.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, winking at her. “Just let me know where to go from here.”

She laughed again, that throaty laugh of hers, and I couldn’t resist. I leaned across the table and caught her mouth in mine. A brief kiss, not even ten seconds, and she pulled away.

"You could do worse than starting with that," she said, her voice rising. 

There was nothing else to do: I kept kissing her.


	6. Chapter 6

We made plans to see each other the next day. I invited her back to my Second Mesa house for a repeat of the dinner and kisses we had shared earlier. This time I was determined to draw Kathryn out, to not be seduced by her easy way of listening to me. I wanted to learn more about her this time.

She arrived a little late, breathless as she came up the walk, and I kissed her cheek in greeting. Under her open coat she wore a green cotton dress that belted at her waist, and I noticed how lovely she looked in green, how aptly the color suited her after her white lab coat and her work apparel.

“Chakotay,” she said after I kissed her, looking up at me with those sly eyes of hers. “I—I don’t know what to say. Thank you for inviting me.”

“Come on in,” I said smoothly. The steak was marinating and I’d already picked and dressed a salad.

“It smells divine,” she said as she walked in. “What is it?”

“Mushroom risotto,” I said casually, taking her coat from her and shutting the door behind us. I put my hand at the base of her spine and led her into the kitchen. “Make yourself at home, Kathryn. You know where everything is.”

She perched on a barstool and watched me cook, her eyes rapt on my every movement. I felt myself growing warm already, wondering if I shouldn’t have taken a cold shower before she came. Despite my jog that morning I began to feel that looseness in my limbs so typical of arousal. She smelled divine, like grass and orange blossoms, and I couldn’t help but touch her again as I handed her a glass of wine. She leaned towards me and took my mouth in hers, an awkward kiss over our glasses, before she sat back in her stool and looked me over, languorously, taking a sip of wine.

“Do you always cook for your dates?” she asked, and I sensed a hint of jealous curiosity in her tone.

I shrugged. “I usually cook for myself,” I said. “It’s not too hard, and I’m used to it, living along.”

“I’m terrible in the kitchen. Mark always—” she began, and stopped herself. I looked at her across the counter and waited for her to finish. She grew silent, twirling the wine in her glass, distracted.

“Mark?” I prompted.

“My fiancé,” she said, looking away. Her neckline was so firm, her chin so stubborn above the long lines of her throat. I wondered what it would be like to kiss her there, in the hollow where her throat met her chest. “My _former_ fiancé,” she clarified, taking a large swallow of wine.

“I sense a story,” I said. She raised an eyebrow at me. “If you want to tell me, I’m all ears,” I assured her.

She sighed. "You psychologists are such good listeners. I could get used to it.”

“So are _you_ ,” I pointed out. “And why shouldn’t you get used to it?” I winked at her and she smiled at me, blushing. “But you still haven’t told me about Mark.”

“Very observant,” Kathryn said.

“It’s my job,” I pointed out. “But seriously: if you don’t want to talk about it, I don’t mean to pry.”

She looked around my kitchen, her eyes landing on the range. “Chakotay! The rice!” she said, leaping from her stool and coming around to stare into the pot. I stood next to her and ladled some more broth into the risotto while she stirred furiously to incorporate it. “Whew,” she said. “Didn’t want that to burn.”

“Are you sure you weren’t trying to distract me?” I teased, as she walked back to her stool on the other side of the counter. I wiped my hands on my apron and tried to look as nonchalant as I could.

“Maybe just a little,” she admitted. “Don’t we all have skeletons in our closets, at our age?”

“I don’t consider forty to be that old!” I said with indignation as I pounded the parsley into the mortar.

“I’m thirty-eight,” she said smugly. She didn’t look a day over thirty.

“I thought we were the same class?” I said.

“I graduated high school early,” she admitted.

“Of course you did,” I said. “And I started college late.” I paused, looking for the garlic. “You still haven’t told me about Mark. Was he why you came here?”

She looked at her fingernails. “Indirectly, I suppose. I broke up with him a little more than a year ago, but I’d wanted to leave the Bay Area for longer than that. But he had tenure, Berkeley’s department was excellent, he didn’t want to leave, etcetera etcetera.”

“Why did you want to leave the Bay?” I asked. She looked surprised by my question.

“The tide of tech money made it hard for anyone else to live there,” she said. “I could barely afford a house, and I’m a physician! I saw the writing on the wall ten years ago, but first there was residency, and the work, and then I met Mark and I stayed.”

“How long were you with him?” I asked as casually as possible.

“Officially, three years, but we dated before then.” She paused. “Can I stir the risotto, Chakotay? Will you show me what to do?”

I showed her what to do. The risotto wasn’t hard to master, once you got the hang of it. I liked having her at my back as I made the chimichurri and sliced the beef for the grill.

She kept talking. “I never thought I’d stay in the Bay as long as I did. I hated it at first. The people were so pretentious, and it only got more unbearable the longer I lived there. Silicon Valley was the worst thing to happen to San Francisco, in my opinion.”

“I have to take this outside to the grill now,” I said to her, pointing at the meat. “Come with me?” She grabbed her glass of wine and followed me out to the deck. I arranged the meat on the grill, hoping she would tell me more.

“It was time to get away,” she said, answering the question I had had for her. “I saw the ad for the Indian Health Service. I applied on a whim, and they accepted me.”

“And here you are with a real, live Indian,” I said. “Who would have thought?” She looked startled and I smiled at her. _White folks don’t like to be reminded of race,_ I told myself.

“Relax, Kathryn, I’m just joking,” I said.

“That’s not how I see—” she began. “I mean—”

“Relax,” I said, turning the meat on the grill. “I didn’t mean to bring myself into it. I want to know more about _you.”_ I looked at her significantly.

“San Francisco,” she said firmly, as if reminding herself of something. “It was time to leave. I hated it, by the end.”

“What about Mark?” I couldn’t help myself.

“Him too,” she said. “I needed out of there. Out of Berkeley, out of the academic crowd. I needed something different.”

“Thus Arizona,” I observed. She nodded.

I plated the beef and handed one dish to her. She sat down at the outside table while I went to bring out the rest of the food and the silverware. The sun would set soon and the rosy light of dusk illuminated the outline of her hair, her shoulders as I came back to the deck.

“Chimichurri!” she exclaimed, as I scooped the sauce onto the meat.

“ _Asado,_ ” I said. “The Spanish knew what to do with their beef. It’s the same here as in Argentina.” I sat across from her, unfolded my napkin and put it in my lap.

She raised her glass. “To new friends,” she said brightly.

“To new friends,” I said, not letting my gaze stray from her. She took a sip and I noticed her lips, stained purple with the wine.

I didn’t learn much more about Mark, no matter how much I prodded her during dinner; she was a closed book on that account. But I did learn more about Kathryn: about what she liked to read (Tolstoy, Turgenev, Ferrante), about her tastes in music (Mahler, Sibelius for classical music; always a tango, no surprise there); about her work with undocumented immigrants in San Francisco, and about her best friend, Tuvaq. Tuvaq, Black-Muslim-turned-Buddhist priest; Dr. Ali, the epidemiologist; Tuvaq, her right-hand man; Dr. Ali, the celebrated bioethicist—

“Tuvaq is celibate,” she said abruptly, sensing more behind my questions. And then, “I hope the two of you meet some day. You might like him.”

I doubted that – she spoke too fondly of him for my liking – but I nodded.

“I want to show you something,” I said abruptly, standing up from my chair. “You asked about livestock. The Spanish didn’t just bring cattle, they brought sheep, too.” She stood as well, her napkin falling to the deck, her plate empty. I led her back into the house, turned the lights on again even though the glare hurt my eyes.

Over my fireplace was a weaving that I thought she had noticed the last time she was here.

“This was done by a local artist,” I told her. “The wool is from a sheep called the Navajo Churro – the breed is distinct to this region. Her brother raised the sheep, and she washed and prepared the fleece. She chose the plants to use for dye – she knew which ones make good dye agents – and she dyed the wool. And then she spun the wool into yarn, and she wove the yarn into _this._ ” I pointed to the wall hanging, the geometric shapes a contrast to the soft edges of the rock beneath them.

“Does it have a meaning?” Kathryn asked. “The design, I mean?”

“Thunder, rain over the mountains,” I told her. “Typical of people in the desert. Rain gives life. Wait until you’re here in the winter, the rainy season. You’ll see, you’ll begin to long for the rain soon too.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “Such skill. Who was the artist?”

“My mother,” I said. “She was a fiber artist.”

“Wasn’t she a nurse, as well?” Kathryn asked pointedly. “Torres told me she used to run the clinic.”

“She ran the clinic until her illness,” I told her. “I was a sophomore at Dartmouth, and I dropped out to take care of her and the clinic, until she died. Then I stayed another year, until we found a new manager and my father insisted I finish my degree.”

“That must have been so hard for you, Chakotay,” she said, gently. “To lose your mother, and then to have to leave your father again. Dartmouth must have been such a culture shock, after all that.”

“It clarified a lot of things for me,” I told her, looking at the weaving. “Made me understand why my father had come back to this place, after he got his degrees. Made me want to come back here too.”

“They say the desert casts its spell,” Kathryn observed, moving closer to me as she continued to look at the weaving.

“Even more so if you were born here,” I said with a sigh. “If your people are from here.”

I had wanted to seduce her tonight, but the memory of my mother, the memory of my people held me back. How much could she understand of us, of me?

As if she sensed my thoughts, she slipped her hand into mine.

“Thank you for sharing this with me,” she whispered. “For sharing—everything. For your welcome. For your openness.”

I didn’t feel like I was being open with her; we hadn’t yet addressed the main difference between us, the racial one. Then I remembered something a Black supervisor had commented to me, once: _Understanding is overrated,_ she had said. _You can never completely understand my experience, and I can never completely understand yours. But I can listen to you and be with you in your suffering, and sometimes that is enough._

Kathryn was trying, in her own way, to be with me in my suffering, even if that loss had happened long ago. Could that be enough?

Her hand still in mine, I began to lead her down the hallway.

I stopped before we reached my bedroom, looked deep into her eyes. “Do you want this?” I asked.

“I want this, Chakotay,” she said breathlessly, raising her arms around my neck and letting me lean in to kiss her cheek, her mouth, her neck. She gasped and murmured under me, her back against the wall, her hands bringing me closer. I kissed her chest, the hollow between her breasts, and then I pulled away to open the door to my bedroom.

I led her to the bed, settling myself next to her as I continued to kiss her gently, purposefully, giving her time to back out of this if that was what she wanted.

Her breath grew more heated and rapid under mine and god, oh god, did she taste divine! Like grapes and grass, musky and dark and womanly. I kissed her again and again, content for the moment with this step, forgetting that I had brought her to my bed for a reason.

She tugged me down and then we were lying next to each other, our mouths joined, her hand at my neck and bringing me closer. Then I rolled her over and she was on top of me, our kisses continuing, her tongue next to mine, her hips wide and rolling against mine. I felt my erection building and tried to hide it from her, but she settled herself more firmly over my hips and I felt her rock into me, her pelvis flush against mine, and I let out an inadvertent moan of pleasure. My hands wandered up under her dress, over her thighs and back over her buttocks, kneading the firm flesh above me, urging her towards me with my hands and my mouth on hers.

Then I knew that I needed to see her, all of her: I needed to know what color her nipples were, if the hair between her legs was curly or straight. I reached behind her for the zipper on her dress, helped her out of the green fabric and stared at the lace of her bra and her panties.

“Can I –” I began, my fingers darting underneath her bra. I needed to see her breasts, needed to feel them in my hands. She reached behind her back and unfastened her bra.

Her breasts were even larger than I had anticipated, round and full, her nipples swollen and dark in the dim light that entered from the hallway. I guessed that they were brown rather than pink as I took one of them in my mouth, listening for the gasps and moans that left her throat, my mouth working her breast even as my hands found the edge of her underwear and began to urge them off and down her legs.

“Chakotay—” she gasped. “I –” Her mouth opened and closed, the words stuck in her throat, and I kissed her there again, our tongues speaking for themselves. I felt warm under my clothes and reached for my belt, but she stilled my hand. “Let me,” she whispered, as she unbuckled my belt and then loosed the button and zipper of my pants.

Suddenly her hand was on my penis, her other hand pulling at my pants, and I tried to stand to get my clothing off but tripped and fell back onto the bed. She laughed in that throaty fashion of hers, pulled away from me long enough to divest herself of the remainder of her clothes at her ankles while I watched her, spellbound, admiring the length of her thighs and the gap between them, my gaze focused on the mound between her legs. Distractedly I removed my pants and pulled the T-shirt over my head, returning my mouth to her nipple as soon as I could, listening to the moans and sighs she made as I kissed her breasts, her ribs, her navel, and then dipped lower, shifting her so she was lying under me again, her back against the bed.

I like eating out: I like a woman’s pubis, soft and moist and sensitive, and Kathryn’s was divine – salty and smooth and oh so sweet. I heard her panting and swearing above me, murmuring my name and some holy divinity’s, and I couldn’t resist: I ran my tongue around her folds before taking her clitoris between my lips and starting that circular motion that I hoped she would like. She lay back and spread her legs wide and I ate her up, my tongue and lips on her clit, my fingers at her entrance, until she spread her legs even wider and I put a finger, two, inside her and she began to buck against me. It surprised me when she came like that, so quickly, her hips rising against my mouth, her mouth panting soft mews and curse words in Spanish – _had it been so long?_ – as she orgasmed against my mouth.

I had not planned very well: my condoms were in my drawer, we had not even talked about protection, but then she was jerking back and away from me, hiding her face in her hands, and I moved up her body, kissing her navel again, her breasts, her neck, and joined our mouths together again.

“Kathryn,” I panted, more aroused than I knew. “Give me a minute – I’ll be right back –” I was going to find the condoms, but she held me close and kissed me passionately, rolling me over onto my back.

“I have an IUD,” she said. “And I’m clean.” She laughed. “Not very responsible of us to not discuss this before, is it?” she asked breathlessly.

“I have condoms,” I said, trying to pull away, but she caught me again.

“Don’t you dare,” she said. “Just tell me – can we…right now?”

I knew what she meant. “I’m clean too,” I said quickly, with as much authority as I could muster, my hand reaching between her legs, spreading her wide as I brought my cock up to her entrance.

“Don’t stop now,” she told me urgently, her hands at my sides, bringing me closer. She wriggled her hips above me and I slid into her, that tight moist heat of a woman that I had been missing for so long. But it was _Kathryn_ this time, this new woman, her body so small and tight and firm above mine.

Her hands went to my ribs, her mouth swept down to meet mine, but I pulled away after kissing her to look down at the two of us joined together. Her hair was dark and straight between her legs, nearly as dark as mine in this light, and I was mesmerized by the taut surface of her stomach against mine, by the way her breasts trembled above me and her head fell back in ecstasy. I rose against her, still joined within her, and flipped her over – give me good old missionary every time – and began to move steadily within her, aware of how my penis rubbed against her folds, her mouth panting against mine, her hands on my buttocks bringing me closer and deeper into her.

I pulled away from her long enough to look into her eyes – she stared up at me again in surprise and I realized she was orgasming a second time, and that it must not be common for her to do that, for she was scratching my back, her nails deep into my shoulder, and she was crying out my name, _Chakotay_ , when I lost control and then I was shooting into her, my hips propelling me forward again and again, and I wondered if it was too rough for her, if this was not what she was looking for, but she held more tightly to me and swore again, _“Puta_ ,” under her breath, and I rested on my forearms as I kissed her mouth again and again.

I wanted to tell her I loved her, but that was ridiculous – _what were we, after all?_ We had known each other all of six months, had dated less than a month – and yet the lassitude of the orgasm loosened my tongue and I had to say something.

“Kathryn,” I blurted out. “Fuck, that was –”

“Shhh,” she murmured, raising her pelvis more firmly against mine, as if she didn’t want me to leave. “So good,” she said, and I felt her continue to pulse around me. “God, it’s been so long, Chakotay,” she gasped, and I kissed her and kissed her, willing her to understand how strongly this was hitting me. She was beautiful underneath me and I couldn’t let her go, didn’t want to slide out even as I felt myself grow soft within her. I kissed her hairline, licked the shell of her ear, and she bucked against me. I worked my hand between us and stroked her clit again, but she pulled abruptly away, bucking at the contact. “Too much,” she gasped. “Fuck, it’s too _much!”_ I stroked her breast instead, enjoying the texture of her nipple underneath my fingers.

“You are beautiful,” I said underneath my breath. “ _Thank you._ ” She laughed and shifted under me, her eyes bright and shining. She appeared on the verge of tears.

“Don’t thank me,” she said, continuing to tremble. “I couldn’t stand it if you thanked me, when – I didn’t expect—” she began. “I mean –”

“Shhh—” I told her, not wanting to hear what she had to say. She was so precious, this naked Kathryn, vulnerable and trembling against me, and I didn’t want her words or reasons. I wished I were twenty years younger so we could start again, I wished –

“Hold me close, Chakotay,” she ordered. Apparently that was enough for her too, this joining of hot bodies, this spread of skin against skin.

“Stay the night?” I asked her, forever hopeful. She shifted underneath me and suddenly we were separate again, one man and one woman.

She kissed my temple, spread her fingers over my back.

“We are only getting started,” she said with a chuckle.


	7. Chapter 7

For a full week after we first made love, the house smelled of Kathryn. I kept catching hints of her perfume on my sheets when I woke up, bringing me hard into morning with the memory of her body under me, over me, the soft underside of her breast and the heat of her open mouth against my lips. I was unnaturally distracted, remembering how she had sighed when I entered her, remembering the breathy tone in her voice when she told me she had wanted it, wanted me.

Even the few stray hairs of hers I found when I cleaned the tub a few days later made me unreasonably happy, giddy even. It was the thrill of infatuation, the first heady days of being in love, too precious to count.

I wanted to show her everything, take her everywhere, tell her everything. I wanted to play her my favorite albums, I wanted to take her swing-dancing in downtown Tucson, I wanted it to get cold enough to build a fireplace in my living room and spend all evening on my couch, next to her as she read or told me a story. My head invented future histories of us together, distracting daydreams that kept intruding upon my paperwork and, on more than one occasion, made it hard for me to pay attention to a patient.

One of my favorite memories of that first night was when I woke up at dawn to find Kathryn kissing my chest, her hand on my already-erect cock, her long hair spread over my shoulder. I pulled her up to kiss her and she straddled my hips, leaning back slightly so her breasts jutted out. I spent several delicious minutes touching each breast before she moved her hips back and gently lowered herself onto me.

That first moment inside a woman is always so incredible, so mind-blowing, and I had forgotten how good sex without a condom could feel – she was so wet, so tight – and if we hadn’t already made love earlier that night I would have been a goner. I appreciated her spontaneity, the trust she showed in me by staying over and waking me up in that way. We moved together more slowly than we had the first time, and I had the chance to observe the small changes her face made as she approached her orgasm. Her mouth tightened a fraction as she brought her own fingers between her legs and worked herself to a peak – so unself-conscious, so totally enraptured in her own pleasure, I almost came at the sight of it.

She lifted and lowered herself slowly at first, then faster and faster, until she finally lay her chest on mine, forearms to the mattress, and told me to go for it. Then I began those firm upward strokes she seemed to like – she appeared to prefer being on top, which was interesting to me, although not my favorite way to come – until she was writhing above me in her orgasm. Her mouth a perfect “o”, she continued to move on me until I felt myself about to come and as smoothly as possible flipped her around so that I was on top. I slid out for a second and she groaned in disappointment: “Fuck, Chakotay,” she said, “Fuck, get back in here.” And then I was in her again and I looked down to watch my cock enter her, that perfect slide of flesh into flesh. She was still riding the aftershocks of her orgasm and urged me to go faster, harder, until I was coming in her again and crying out to some god I didn’t believe in.

I pressed my face against her shoulder so she couldn’t see my expression; it felt too raw, too intimate all of a sudden. At that moment I knew without a doubt that I had fallen in love with her.

I’m not going to lie, it was hard going back to the clinic that week and focusing on anything but the woman down the hall from me. Torres, with that sixth sense of hers, almost immediately picked up on something different between the two of us, but much to my amusement she assumed that the odd formality that had sprung up between me and Kathryn had to do with some sort of argument rather than its true cause.

“She’s not so bad once you get used to her,” Belanna told me one afternoon. “It took me a while to warm up to her, but I think you ought to give her a chance.”

I had to hold back my laughter as I told her, as straight-facedly as possible, that I was sure Dr. Janeway was a perfectly pleasant person, I just didn’t need to consult with her constantly for the clinic to run smoothly.

My sister was on to us more quickly. She and Leslie came over to my place that Wednesday for dinner, and it didn’t take her long to say that Miranda had happened to mention that Dr. Janeway was gone all Sunday night from her cabin, and did I know where she had been?

“I assume she was in Flagstaff,” I lied, “given that she also has a place there.” Sekaya and I were talking in the kitchen, doing the dishes after dinner. Leslie was in the other room.

“No, Miranda was worried because she had told her she wasn’t going back to the city until midweek.”

“Was she back at Miranda’s on Monday night?” I asked, knowing very well that she was.

“Yes,” Sekaya admitted.

I looked at her pointedly. “Then she must have been fine. You and Miranda should let that woman live her own life.”

“She was just watching out for her!” Sekaya protested. “I thought you, of all people, would have appreciated that!”

“Me, of all people?” I asked. “What does that even mean?” I stacked the dish I just washed in the drying rack and turned towards her.

“Come on, Chakotay, I know you’ve been seeing each other.”

“How do you know that?” I asked as coolly as possible. It was hard to keep a secret in Second Mesa, that I knew, but I was tired of my older sister’s prying.

“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “Womanly intuition, you could call it.”

“Intuition and Miranda’s gossip,” I said, laughing despite myself. “You and her don’t have anything better to do than get up in other people’s business.”

“So you admit it’s your business?” she pushed.

“I admit nothing,” I said, spreading my hands wide. “I can neither confirm nor deny….”

She laughed and swatted a dishcloth at me. “Always such a closed book, Chak,” she said. “I know, you’ll let me know when—”

“When there’s something to know,” I said. “You’ll know.”

Leslie was in the other room, fiddling with the stereo, and the music came on suddenly, too loud. I poked my head out of the kitchen and glared at my niece.

“So sorry!” she said loudly, the remote in her hand. “I can’t figure out how to turn it down.”

Leslie’s music was a distraction and Sekaya didn’t return to the topic of Kathryn again, but I knew the wheels in her head were spinning. Before long she was bound to broach the topic again, but I wanted more time with Kathryn, the two of us, before making it public.

It turned out that Kathryn was nearly as private a person as I am – even more private, I would learn soon enough, when I wanted to start putting a name to our relationship and she resisted even that. For the time being, it seemed she wanted to be with me as much as possible outside of our working hours, and we arranged to meet again at my house the following Friday evening.

I surprised her by inviting her in only long enough to hand her some blankets and a picnic basket.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“I thought we’d watch the stars come out,” I said. “Wait a minute – I need to turn all the house lights off so it’s as dark as possible. We don’t have to go far.”

A little beyond the main yard there was an area with a fire pit and some folding chairs. I’d stocked it with wood earlier that day and swept the ground free of debris in anticipation of our picnic dinner. Kathryn followed me out into the dusk, lamenting at having just missed the sunset. I led her to the place I had prepared and with her help I spread one blanket on the ground and set the other ones on the chairs, for later, once it got dark.

The picnic was simple, a roast chicken and some vegetables. Kathryn had brought wine again but we didn’t open it right away, we didn’t need alcohol to relax and flirt that night. I was turned on from the moment she knocked on my door, entranced by the sight of her wrapped in one of my old plaid blankets, the shadows from the campfire kind to her face.

After dinner I put the fire out and we lay side by side on the blanket and looked up at the stars. I showed her what I thought was Mars and she corrected me, told me it was Venus.

“I was always bad at astronomy,” I admitted. “Not your typical Indian scout. Though I do know a few constellations.”

She laughed. “I don’t expect that of you,” she said, turning to kiss my nose. “I didn't ask for a guide, Chakotay.”

“At least it would have been a useful stereotype to live up to,” I said, pulling her closer so she was nestled against me.

“When was the last time you needed to look to the North Star to know which way you were going?” she asked.

“Just about never,” I admitted. “My ancestors would be rolling in their graves.” I looked down at her and felt the urge to push the hair back from her face.

“You don’t talk much about it,” she said.

“About what?”

“About being Hopi. I mean, you tell me plenty about what I need to know about my Hopi patients, and about my Mexican patients too for that matter. And then you make jokes about not being Indian enough. Which you don’t have to do for my sake, by the way. But it makes me wonder why you haven’t talked about it with me.”

Her question surprised me and I hesitated, caught off guard. “That’s a personal topic,” I said. “You can understand if I don’t talk about it with everyone.”

She sighed and pulled away just enough for me to miss her warmth next to me.

“I’m not uncomfortable with us being different,” she said. “But I think we should talk about those differences sometime.” There was a defensiveness to her voice that I hadn’t heard before and didn’t care for. We had been talking about _my_ people, not hers, after all, and I knew far too much about hers to be curious in that respect.

“Some time,” I said, promising more than I wanted to in that moment.

“Did I say something wrong?” she asked, more sensitive than I gave her credit for. I wanted to pull her back to me, to kiss her and make both of us forget the awkwardness of this conversation, but I knew that was a coward’s way out. Besides, she hadn’t intended any harm – that much was clear to me, from the way she worked with me and our patients – but the old wariness towards her people had crept back into me with her questions, and I wasn’t sure how to banish that specter between us. “If I gave offense, I’m so very sorry, Chakotay,” she said.

I bit back the words I wanted to say, knowing they were too harsh for the occasion, knowing they were meant for someone else and not Kathryn. Instead, I took her hand in mine and pointed our joined hands up to the sky.

“See that star?” I asked. “I know that one. That’s Vega, in Lyra, the lyre. It’s one of the brightest stars in the sky.” I paused, breathing in the smell of burnt wood and sagebrush and between them the sweet smell of Kathryn’s perfume. “When I was a kid I always used to say I wanted to be an astronaut, whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.”

“An astronaut!” she said in disbelief. “Why’s that?”

“I wanted to get as far away from the Reservation as possible,” I said. “That seemed like as good place as any to start.”

She laughed and turned towards me on the blanket, her forehead almost touching mine, then pulled back to look at me. “Chakotay the astronaut. I’d never have guessed.”

“And what about you? What did you want to be when you grew up?” I took her hand in mine and rubbed my thumb against her knuckles.

“I always knew I was going to be a doctor,” Kathryn said. “That was settled from day one. But secretly, I always wanted to be a ballet dancer.”

“Like every little girl?” I asked.

“More serious than that,” she said. “I took lessons for many years, but then in college it was too hard to pursue dance and pre-med at the same time. I have to admit, it hurt terribly to give it up.”

“Do you still dance?” I asked.

“It's been a long time,” she admitted. "Too long."

“You must miss it,” I said.

“Terribly,” she said, and I could hear the sadness in her voice.

“Yet you’re one hell of a doctor,” I pointed out. She trembled slightly and I pulled her close. Her cheek was cold against mine. “You’re shivering,” I said. “Let’s get you back inside. Leave everything here, I can bring the rest in later. ” I stood up first, pulling her to her feet, and kissed her mouth. “I can think of a few ways to warm you up.”

“Mmm, I like the sound of that,” she murmured, clinging to my coat for another kiss before pulling away and wrapping the blanket more tightly around her.

I looked up one last time at the sky and the cold, scattered stars above before taking the hand of the woman next to me and leading her back to my house.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kathryn and I spent the next few months meeting after work and on weekends and, at her request, keeping our relationship hidden from our colleagues and my family.

At first I liked the idea of having a secret between the two of us, even though it became increasing difficult to explain my frequent absences to Sekaya and Leslie with anything like a reasonable excuse. But I liked the thrill of planning a weekend hiking trip just far enough away from the reservation that the chance of running into anyone we knew was slim, and I liked the privacy our planning afforded us. Some days it felt like it was just the two of us alone in the desert, and I relished the opportunity to get to know Kathryn better without the interference of the outside world. It was nice to have a secret of my own, for a change, and not just being the keeper of my patients’ secrets. And what a secret it was! I was in love with my boss, and it was wonderful.

A small part of me was reminded of my father and the frequent affairs that he had had after our mother’s death – women he met at conferences, fellow academics, or, a few times, I suspect even medical students. He thought he was keeping these women a secret from me and Sekaya, but it was painfully obvious when he just _had_ to go to a next-day conference in Houston or Atlanta, or when his cell buzzed at all hours and he stepped outside to take his calls, or when he began to wear expensive cologne and fine silk ties when he traveled down to Phoenix. I didn’t begrudge my father a little fun in his old age, but the secrecy had always puzzled me, had seemed so unnecessary to both Sekaya and me given that he was a widow and we were all adults. Now, I thought, I understood him a little better, for the secrecy added to the piquancy of my relationship with Kathryn.

Come winter we were still seeing each other. I discovered that Kathryn loved skiing – any kind, but especially cross-country – and I took her to the Flagstaff Bowl every weekend we had together. We’d spend the day skiing, starting out together but then following separate trails as the day progressed and we each worked up to our own speeds, then coming back together for lunch at the yurt before another hour or two on the trails. Then we’d throw our skis in the back of my truck and drive back to my desert house, arriving just as the sun was getting lower in the sky.

One particular day, perhaps it was during a long weekend in January, something changed between the two of us.

We spent the day as usual, late breakfast in the morning before driving to the Bowl. But on the way I caught Kathryn looking at me more than usual, and I was turned on by the time we got there. I gave her a few kisses pressed up against the side of the truck and told her she was a cute little snow-bunny, for which she punched me lightly in the stomach: “I’ll show you snow-bunny, mister!” We flirted the rest of the day; every time we saw each other on the trail, it was some innuendo or another, some hint of what we both wanted to happen later that day.

And then, at lunch, we ran into Sekaya and Leslie at the yurt.

I tried not to show them or Kathryn how uncomfortable I was – our continued secrecy depended on me keeping my cool, and pretending a casualness I didn’t feel – but in retrospect I may have been a little too good at the practiced indifference. I introduced Kathryn to my sister, told Sekaya, “I’m just showing Dr. Janeway where the best skiing is in Flagstaff,” and I think my sister believed me this time, for she was tired of teasing me about Kathryn and seemed to have finally accepted the story that Janeway was just my boss, so often had I denied otherwise.

Kathryn looked Sekaya over carefully, held a gracious hand out to her and to Leslie, and seemed disappointed when I told Sekaya that we had been just about to leave.

Kathryn and I continued to flirt for the rest of the day, though much more discreetly. The fear of running into Sekaya and Leslie again added something to the adventure, I thought.

 

When we got back to my house, after we both had showered, I brought Kathryn inside my room and made love to her as gently and painstakingly as I could. I had been aroused for hours and I wanted to make it worth the wait for both of us.

After she showered and changed, I asked her to stand in front of my bed and looked her over. She was wearing what used to be called “mom jeans,” high-waisted and stone-washed, and were now just the usual hipster’s outfit, though I would have been hard-pressed to call her a hipster. Tucked into her jeans she wore a tight white shirt with a low neckline, and again I admired her slender waist and the fullness of her breasts above them.

“Have I told you how beautiful you look today?” I asked her in a low voice, walking in a circle around her. Kathryn put her fingers to her throat and moved towards me, but I stilled her with my hand. “Stay there,” I said. “I want to see you.” I walked towards her and unbuttoned her jeans, pulling the zipper down slowly before sliding her pants over her narrow hips.

“Chakotay—” she began, shimmying out of her jeans. I got on my knees and kissed the top of her panties, just below her navel, and she instinctively spread her legs wider. I lifted up her shirt and slid my palms up her ribs, resting over her bra. She reached and took her shirt off.

I stood up and ran my eyes over her body again. Her hips jutted just slightly forward, as if her pelvis was reaching up towards me, her breasts lifted towards me as well. “Take off your bra,” I told her. She nodded and quickly removed the garment, her eyes on mine the whole time. Her large breasts came free and I couldn’t stop from staring at them. Kathryn cupped them lightly in her hands and moved towards me.

“I know you want to touch them,” she said. “Men always do.” I grunted something in response and dipped my head to take one in my mouth. My hands went to her stomach and I stroked the dip where her hip met her waist, enjoying the smallness, the preciseness of her proportions. She began to squirm a little under me, pushing her breast further into my mouth, and I enjoyed the sounds she was making, those little pants and moans as I moved back and forth from one breast to another. My hands found the edge of her panties then and I moved one finger underneath them – first stroking her pelvic bone, then moving slowly behind to where her buttocks met each other under the fabric. I felt her legs widen even more as I ran my fingers between her buttocks. I slid one finger gently over her anus and she shook and trembled against me, bucking away from the sensation. I pulled up and kissed her then, hard, before spitting into my hand and returning my wet fingers to stroke her from behind. She made a sound as if surprised, as my finger touched her anus again, and she dropped her head onto my neck.

“I’ve never—” she began, and I could hear genuine nervousness in her voice.

“Shhh,” I said. “That’s not what I’m aiming for.” My other hand stroked her back.

She seemed to relax. “I like the idea of it but the actuality scares me,” she admitted.

“Do you like this?” I asked, continuing to touch her in the hollow between her buttocks.

“More than I can say,” she said, rubbing back against me.

“Then lie down on your stomach,” I said, leading her to the bed. She lay down, her butt jutting up into the air, and she turned to look at me.

“It feels naughty this way,” she said. “I can’t see what you’re doing.”

I laughed. “That’s kind of the point,” I said. Her body was open, her pink cunt glistening between her legs. It was so delightful to play with her like this, to have this kind of access.

Rapidly I took my clothes off and moved closer to her, spreading my body over her. The feel of her skin against mine after I had been dressed for so long was irresistible. I kissed her neck, her shoulder blades, the small of her back, and she delighted me by moaning and lifting her hips up towards mine. She had hardly touched me yet but I was erect and straining by now, and took pleasure in resting my cock in the hollow between her buttocks, watching her squirm underneath me at the sensation of my cock against her ass. She opened her legs a bit – _Opened herself for me,_ I thought – and I ran my hand down to the warm join of her sex. My fingers brushed her labia, stretching them to feel the moisture gathered between them. She shifted under me and I sensed that she was trying to get me to touch her clitoris, but I kept stroking her labia until she was panting under me, and then I inserted a finger inside her. I kept up a steady rhythm, my finger imitating what my cock would later do, and she pressed her face against the bed as if hiding herself from me.

“I like doing this to you, Kathryn,” I whispered. She moaned, then clamped her mouth shut.

“This is—this is—” she began.

“Do you like it too?” I asked her gently. “Do you like the way I’m fucking you with my fingers?” She hummed in satisfaction. “Do you like how you can’t see me, how you don’t know what I’m going to do next?” She moved her head in a nod and I moved my fingers up and around her clitoris, causing her to call out suddenly. “I could bring you off right now,” I told her firmly, “with just my fingers, like this. But I think I’d like to make you wait. I want to be inside you when you come. I want you to come from just my penis alone. But first you have to be good and ready. Do you think you can do that? Come from just penetration alone?”

“Fuck, Chakotay!” she cried out, moving her hips up and back as I continued to work circles around her clit with my fingers.

“I’m going to keep touching you like this,” I continued, “and then, just when you can’t stand it anymore, I am going to penetrate you. You are going to feel my cock inside you soon. I’m more than ready for you. But god, you’re so beautiful like this, Kathryn – I wish you could see yourself right now!”

She _was_ beautiful, all rosiness and heat and moisture, the soft salty scent of a woman’s sex, the firmness of muscles under flesh. She began to clench around me and I knew that she was close. I pulled my hand away and spread her legs, getting a good glimpse of her tight ass and her wet cunt before I took my cock in my hand and led it into her. She made a deep groan as I pushed through her outer labia, filling her completely, then pulling half-way out before plunging back into her. I felt sweat begin to drip down my back, under my arms, as I looked down at both of us joined together and focused on establishing a steady, maddeningly slow rhythm. It took all of my self-control not to come from just looking at us joined together.

Kathryn seemed to like it when I talked to her during sex, so I kept it up. I fucked her as I told her how beautiful she was, how extraordinary a woman she was. I told her how sexy I found her, how since the moment I’d seen her again in Second Mesa I had wanted to make love to her. I told her I fantasized about her like this, under me, even though we’d been sleeping together for months. I told her I found her breasts fantastic and I wanted to come between them some day. I told her I liked eating her out, and with those words – _eating you out_ – she trembled and almost leapt underneath me, her hips pressing firmly back against mine as she began to call out, again and again, my name and “Fuck! Fuck! Yes, that’s it, yes, that’s _it!_ ” Then I went even faster, rode her to the end of her orgasm, until I suspected that my cock against her cervix began to hurt her, until suddenly I was overcome with my own orgasm, the stronger for having been held back, and I collapsed onto her.

She smelled liked grass and semen and orange blossoms, like a bride on her wedding night. I kissed the spot behind her ear and ran my hands over her hair. She kept breathing heavily, her body still wracked by the aftershocks of her orgasm. “Shh,” I told her. “It’s alright, it’s alright. There’s nothing wrong.”

Her laughter was slightly hysterical. “Fuck, I’m still _coming_ , Chakotay!” she said, and she kept writhing against me even though I was growing soft within her. I caressed her hips, the firm globes of her buttocks.

“Ride it out,” I told her. “I’ve got you.” I held her tight, marveling again at how responsive she was to my touch; it did good things to my ego.

Suddenly she rolled out and away from me, as if my touch were too much to bear. She flung a hand over her face and turned away.

“Kathryn?” I reached for her shoulder. She jerked away from me.

“It’s too much,” she whispered. “Just – give me a minute. You can’t just do that to me and expect me to be alright.”

“That’s exactly what I want you to be,” I told her. “All right.” I sighed. “You _are_ alright with this, aren’t you?”

She made a high-pitched sound and turned over, looking me straight in the eye.

“When we have sex, it is like you are making love to me, Chakotay.” She looked away then, took a deep breath. “As if you love me. The way you touch me, the things you say to me….” She trailed off, wordless.

“Is there anything wrong with that?” I asked, adjusting my foreskin back, running my hands under my balls with the languor of a good orgasm. I liked how my body looked these days, how it felt next to hers. We were good together in bed.

“Nothing wrong,” she said softly. “I just – I didn’t expect it.”

I rolled over on my side and took her hand. She pulled away, but turned to lie facing me on the bed, her head resting on one hand. “What did you expect?” I asked.

She looked down. “A fling, I suppose,” she admitted. “A way to get over Mark. Fun in the sun. Good sex. But not –” her voice broke, “not the way you make love to me. As if you mean it. As if it were something more.”

I took her hand and kissed her palm. “Thank you for your honesty,” I said. “But I'm confused – would you rather I didn’t mean it? Would you rather this were just sex?”

“I _thought_ that’s what I wanted,” she said softly, almost bashfully. “I’m sorry – this is terrible of me to be telling you all this—”

“I’d rather know what I’ve gotten myself into,” I said, a bit tightly.

“It’s not fair to you,” she insisted. “I shouldn’t be working this out with you. I should talk to a friend or something. It’s just – you surprised me today. Sometimes I feel like I know you, Chakotay, and other times I just can’t read you.” I was staring at her breasts again because I didn’t want to look her in the eye.

“What you see is what you get,” I said.

“No, it’s not,” she said heatedly. “You’re so much more…Look, Chakotay, you are so contained, so controlled. So willing to do everything for me, to make things easier for me.” Her voice grew faster, more pressured. “If I don’t want to have a public affair, fine, no problem, you’re fine with it. You’ll keep my secrets at work. You don’t press me about Mark, but you don’t let me know about any of your past girlfriends. I tell you about myself and my family, but I’ve barely met yours before today, except for your cousin. You invite me over but you don’t really invite me into your life. And then you make love to me as if your life depended on it. And I don’t really know what to think, don’t know where we are going from here. It’s hard to take things one day at a time when we’re not even talking about what this is.”

“I thought you didn’t want to define us, Kathryn,” I pointed out. “Are you saying you want us to go public about this?”

“I’m saying I would have liked you to be honest with me, if that’s what you wanted,” she said. The low light of the room cast tempting shadows on her face, underneath her breasts.

“I wanted what was best for you,” I said. Right then, I wanted to kiss her but I held back.

“That’s not an answer,” Kathryn said. “Come on, you can’t put everything aside for me! Don’t make love to me like that and tell me you don’t have your own needs, your own desires! I don’t buy it.”

I gritted my teeth and sat up, searching for my clothes. “Now I’m the one who is confused, Kathryn,” I said, pulling on my briefs. “Are you saying that I shouldn’t care about what you want? That I should just try to satisfy my own needs in this relationship?”

“I’m saying that I wish you had put up more of a fuss about defining us!” she said hotly, as if aware of how contradictory she was sounding.

“Ah, I see,” I began, somewhat condescendingly. “ _You_ want us to take things slow, you don’t want us to let other people know we are dating – but you want _me_ to want to be public about all this? _You_ want to hide this, but you want _me_ to not want to hide it, even if in the end you’ll need me to hide it anyway? Well, I’m sorry, Kathryn, but you don’t get to decide what I want from you!” I pulled on my pants with as much determination as I could muster.

“At least you’re admitting you want something!” she said, flustered. “But I still don’t know what you want!”

“You really want to know what I want, Kathryn?” I asked softly, dangerously. “Do you really want to know?”

She looked uncertain but nodded. “Yes, I want to know,” she said.

I sat back down on the bed and handed Kathryn her underwear and bra. She began to dress but kept her eyes fixed on me.

“What you perceive when I make love to you is correct,” I began. “I make love as if I mean it, because I do. I do mean it. I’m forty years old, Kathryn, old enough to know what I want, and I want you.

“I still think it’s too early to talk about this, because I believe in things taking their own time, but you have asked me so I will let you know,” I continued. “I don't like casual relationships. I don’t need a fuck buddy. If I’m dating you it’s because I’m serious about it, it’s because I’d like it to lead to something more someday.

“This has never been just a fling for me, and I think you know that, I think you’ve always known that, which is why you wanted to talk to me about Second Mesa and who would stay with the clinic if this doesn’t work out. You wanted to make sure there was an exit strategy for yourself, that you wouldn’t hurt me more than you would by leaving me when your fling was done.”

She was wide-eyed and appeared hurt. But I continued. “As I said, I didn’t want to talk about this now. But you forced my hand, Kathryn.”

“I didn’t—”

“For god’s sake, I’m in love with you, Kathryn Janeway!” I interrupted, and my words caught in my throat. They came out sounding like I was on the verge on tears and I chided myself for my lack of control. Now I felt vulnerable, exposed, at her mercy. I rose and began to walk out of the room before she could say a word.

“Chakotay!” she called after me. “How dare you drop that on me and leave! Come back here!” She scrambled out of bed and followed me down the hall.

I turned around threw up my hands in frustration. “What more do you want from me, Kathryn?” I asked. “I told you what you wanted to know.”

“You didn’t ask me how I felt,” she said. Despite myself I felt myself softening towards her, towards the gentleness in her tone, but I wasn’t ready to give in just yet.

I crossed my arms over my bare chest and stared back at her. “Do you have something to say?” I asked her.

She walked towards me and put a hand on my forearm. “Do you think this hasn’t had an effect on me, too? That all these weeks and months of seeing each other have meant nothing to me?” She took a deep breath. “You are the best lover I have ever had, Chakotay.” I blushed. “And the best boyfriend.” She reached up and kissed my cheek. “It drives me crazy to know you’re just down the hall at work, and I have to wait until the evening or the weekend to be with you again.” Her eyes were so dark they nearly looked black. “It makes me jealous to think you were with Seska for three years, and everyone here knew about it. I’m tired of being your secret, Chakotay.”

“What are you saying?” I asked her.

She took a deep breath. “I want to know more about you, Chakotay: you don’t tell me very much about yourself, despite all the time we’ve spent together. I want to be closer to you. And I want you to introduce me to your family as your girlfriend, to start.”

I felt the happiness begin to spread through my chest and my fingers. This time I let her kiss my mouth until I was breathless with renewed desire for her.

“Yes,” I murmured. “That I can do. All of that.”

I wondered idly what Sekaya and Belanna would say to me when I told them. I wondered what else Kathryn wanted to know about me. And then all further thoughts were stilled by the force of her mouth on mine and the surprise of my growing arousal.

We made it back to the bedroom again, but just barely.


	9. Chapter 9

I took Kathryn at her word that she wanted to know more about me.

The next weekend I suggested we go back to Canyon de Chelly for a hike. It was cooler in the winter and there was more green now in the canyon and in the riverbed: the ideal time for a hike down there. We started early enough in the morning that the canyon was still in shadow on the way down, and both Kathryn and I were bundled up against the chill of the air.

“For one thing,” I told her, “Chelly is the Spanish spelling of the word _Tséyi,_ a Navajo word meaning Canyon. So it’s a bit redundant: the canyon of canyons.”

“Maybe that’s intentional?” Kathryn suggested. “Canyon of Canyons – sounds important.”

“It was important, to the ancestral Pueblans,” I told her. “And some Navajo still live here, even though the people that built those dwellings left long ago.”

We were walking near some of the Navajo hogans and small subsistence plots that a few of the families worked there. I pointed out the mounds where corn had been recently planted, and showed her the trellises for the beans and squash to climb. “Traditional agriculture,” I said. “Three sisters and all that. This is what my father was studying.”

“Have you ever thought to continue his research?” Janeway asked. She lifted her boot out of some mud and bent down to retie her shoelace. Her red flannel shirt stretched perceptibly around her shoulders, highlighting the leanness of her muscles.

“I don’t have the epidemiological or statistical training,” I admitted. “Besides, his colleagues at ASU practically took over the research a few years ago, when he started to get sick. It’s in good hands, I trust those folks.” His colleagues were Navajo and Spanish American researchers that he had collaborated with for years. “I’m not a researcher, Kathryn; I’m a clinician.”

She stood and put her hands on her hips, a favorite posture of hers. I could imagine her on the deck of a ship, looking out to sea, commanding the waves. She had such presence, even when we were alone and I was her only audience. I would be surprised if she hadn’t been slated to be the next chief of some large medical unit in San Francisco. Instead, she had walked away from all that and had chosen a small rural practice in Arizona, and I was so much the luckier.

“There’s a recurring dream I’ve had over the years of this place,” I told her, trying to do what she had asked me to do and share with her more of myself. “In my dream I am standing at the top of the canyon and looking down into it. Only instead of the river down below, I see a river of fire. I'm not afraid, I'm not close enough for it to hurt me, but I can feel the heat and my lungs start to burn from the smoke. Then I look down again, and the fire has turned into water again. I descend down into the canyon and walk towards the lush riverbed. I see a white object near the water, and when I get closer I realize that it’s a human skull.” I paused and looked at her, curious to hear what she’d make of it.

“What do you think it means?” she asked me. She stepped forward as if about to take my hand in hers, then stepped away and kept walking at my side.

“I always believed it had to do with colonization,” I told her. “The fire being the arrival of Europeans to this area, their guns and diseases wiping out my people as definitively as any fire could do. And then, despite it all, the return of life by the river, the green plants that come back even stronger after fire, the persistence of my people in the desert and the renewal of the land.”

“Anything else you remember about the dream?” Janeway asked.

“Sometimes in the dream the white thing I see by the river isn’t a skull after all, but a woman in white, wearing flowing white dress and lace veil.”

“Like a bride?” She shielded her face against the sun as she looked up at me.

“More like a ghost, I think,” I told her. “Reminds me of _la llorona._ ”

“Isn’t that a Mexican legend?” she asked. “The woman who kills her children?”

“It has its roots in Mesoamerican lore,” I told her. “It’s probably a hybrid of indigenous and Spanish beliefs.”

“Gives me the shivers,” she told me.

“Me too,” I admitted. “I started seeing la llorona in my dream after I was working with a little Mexican girl who had this deathly fear of la llorona. You know, it’s like the Mexican bogeyman, kids scare each other with it.”

“I know,” she said. “So interesting that it would make your way into your dream.”

I shrugged. “Spanish, Hopi, Navajo, Anglo – we’re all hybrids out here. I’m not surprised. Those legends go back a long time. Deep cultural roots.”

“I wish I had that sense of history sometimes,” Kathryn admitted. We started to walk faster, following the bank of the river upstream. “I know my ancestors were English and Scotch Irish, but I don’t know exactly why they came to America. I don’t know what moved them, what they were afraid of or what they dreamed about. You seem so much knowledgeable about your ancestors than I am about mine.”

“You’re swimming in the cultural milieu, as my father would say,” I told her. “You’re like a fish that doesn’t know it’s in water. America – _this_ country, postcolonialism, etcetera – is such a project of your people that you can’t even see it for what it is. The language, the laws, the customs – all basically English or northern European.”

“I could see it more clearly from outside,” she said. “When I lived in Argentina. It was more obvious to me then where I came from, what made my America different from their America.” She reached out and pulled a stem of grass to hold and bend in her fingers. I noticed a gold ring on the smallest finger of her right hand, something I’d never seen her wear before.

“Argentina is still pretty European,” I pointed out. “But Spanish. Like these lands, which were Spanish after they were Navajo.”

“Perhaps that’s why I feel some sense of familiarity here,” she said. “The place names, the old Catholic churches, the agriculture reminds me of the small villages I visited in rural Uruguay.”

“Do you like it here?” I turned around to ask her. I wanted to ask her if she felt she could make a home here, but I didn’t dare.

“I miss the humidity, I miss the rain,” she said. “But I find myself liking the desert more and more. It feels like an enchanted place. I can just imagine your llorona here,” pointing to the river bed, “as if we had gone back in time a thousand years.”

“Most indigenous peoples have a circular sense of time,” I told her. “Maybe that’s what you are picking up on here too.”

“Could that really be?” she wondered. “Could I actually be sensing that?” She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and a few strands fell in front of her face. Kathryn was charming like that, slightly disheveled and sweaty from the hike.

“I believe it’s possible,” I told her. “You’re in this land now, you’re living here and working with the people here. It doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility for you to begin to enter into their own version of time.”

“In what version of time could someone like you and someone like me ever be friends?” she asked suddenly. “At what time could love ever exist between our peoples?”

I caught up with her, tempted to take her hand but I held back to let her finish. Instead, she grew silent, waiting for me to respond.

“I believe such love is possible,” I told her. “Not easy, but certainly possible.”

“Despite the fact that we have stolen your lands, stolen this whole country from you?” she asked. “It seems too much to me, sometimes.”

“Too much for what?” I asked her, standing just behind her, waiting for her lead, hoping she would turn around and look at me.

“Too much for us to understand each other,” she said, still turned away from me. “Too much hate and too many wrongs for there to be love.”

I shook my head and realized she couldn’t see me. “No, Kathryn, I don’t agree. I know where you are coming from – I used to think the same, but I don’t anymore.” I didn’t tell her what had changed my mind, didn’t tell her that she, in part, was responsible for my newfound optimism. “Look, if we believe that time is circular, then I have to trust that empires will rise and empires will fall, but the land will still be here. No matter who owns it, no matter who crosses it in desperation, no matter how many walls they build. The land remains. And at the end of the day, people are just people.”

“You’re incredible, Chakotay,” Kathryn breathed. I stepped just close enough that I could feel the heat of her body against my chest. “So generous, so forgiving.” I wrapped my arms around her and nestled my mouth at her neck.

I laughed. “Would you like me to remain an angry social justice warrior? The activist who loses sight of the individual? It’s not your fault we are in this situation.” I kissed her neck and ran my hands over her waist.

“Not even if I continue to benefit from it?” She turned around to look at me, doubtful, guilty, and I knew that that kind of guilt never did much good.

“You are privileged, Kathryn, but I truly believe you have tried to use your privilege for good. It’s something I admire about you.” I put my hands back to her waist and drew her closer to me. “You can’t help being born the person you are. What you can help is what you have done with it. And that’s been quite a lot, I think.”

She blushed and looked up at me, taking my cheek in her hand. “Thank you, Chakotay,” she said softly. “Thank you for being willing to have this conversation with me.”

I kissed her gently then, just touching my lips to her. She smelled like sage and like the wood fires that had been burning in the hogans. “I have proof that such love is possible,” I told her under my breath, pulling back to look her in the eyes before I kissed her again, more passionately. She put her arms around my neck and pulled me closer to her.

We stood there a while just kissing, exchanging breaths in the cool air of the morning. “Have you ever had sex outdoors before?” she asked me eagerly, foolhardily. I loved how she moved so quickly from intense conversation to sexual connection, how there was no barrier for her between intellectual and physical intimacy.

“Of course,” I said with a chuckle. “I fooled around a lot as a teenager outside. It was the only place I could get away from my dad. And then when I came back here during college when my mom was sick, I had this girlfriend whose parents wouldn’t let her bring anyone back to her house. So we would take my pickup truck somewhere out in the desert and have sex in the back.”

“Doesn’t sound very comfortable,” she said, laughing, but her eyes looked mischievous. We had come to the Canyon in my pickup.

“Oh, I put down blankets and cushions,” I assured her. “It was very comfortable.” I stared at her and laughed. “Oh no, Kathryn, I know what you’re thinking!”

“What am I thinking?” she asked coyly, pressing closer to my chest.

“It’s a long hike back to the truck,” I pointed out.

“Far be it for me to want to desecrate a sacred site,” she said carefully, “but surely there must be someplace private in this canyon that isn’t a thousand-year-old monument.”

“Well, actually…,” I began, liking the way her mind worked. “I do know of some caves and underhangs that are off the beaten track…”

“Lead me to it, Chakotay!” she challenged.

“It’ll be cold,” I warned her, calling back to her over my shoulder as I began to rapidly walk towards the east, towards one of the smaller side canyons that tourists rarely visited.

“So we’ll keep most of our clothes on,” she proposed. “You did bring a blanket, right?”

I hummed a yes in reply.

Fifteen minutes later we were in a shallow cave that I had visited years earlier with my father. Large bulrushes from a side stream hid the entrance well from any passersby. I was as excited as Kathryn seemed, rushing to keep up with me and beginning to unbutton her shirt. I opened my backpack and spread the blanket out on the floor of the cave, then sat on it to remove my boots. Kathryn joined me and did the same, then turned towards me and began to loosen the buttons from my shirt.

“It’s still cold here, Kathryn,” I pointed out. “Let me keep something on.” She stilled her hands and kissed me instead. Her mouth was eager, insistent, as her hands moved to my waist and opened my belt. In an instant her fingers were under my briefs and cupping my balls. “Christ!” I told her. “You are eager, aren’t you?” In response she opened her mouth against mine, her tongue searching me out. She pressed her chest against me as my hands went to her breasts, still covered by her undershirt. Kathryn began to sigh as I kneaded her breasts, then slid my hands up under her shirt and bra and found a nipple in each hand.

“I like your breasts,” I told her. “I’m sure you know that by now.” She laughed, deep and earthy, and bucked against my hand as I twisted her nipples. “But I also think that you like to have your breasts touched. Am I right? That they are particularly sensitive?” She nodded and began to writhe under me. Then, as if possessed, her hand went up to cup my penis. I heard the slide of skin against skin before she lifted her palm to her mouth, spit into it, and returned her wet fingers to my shaft.

It felt so illicit, to be sitting here out in the open like two horny teenagers who had nowhere else to go. For several minutes I enjoyed caressing her breasts while she worked my penis with her hand, and then it was too much and I wanted to see her, to touch her skin in broad daylight, to consecrate the green earth with our lovemaking. I reached and helped her to pull down her pants and underwear, taking them off just one leg, just far enough down that she could spread her legs out under her and I could see her open cunt. She looked like she had recently shaved down there, and I liked the tidiness for a change; there was something illicit in that, too, as if I were touching a teenage bikini-wearer with a Brazilian. She reached for my pants then and I opened them just enough to push them down my legs and let my cock out. Then I positioned myself over her to mount her, opening her folds with my fingers as I pushed in. She grunted as she moved to accommodate me and I lifted her shirt again, searching out a nipple with my fingers as I began to kiss her mouth.

“It’s not enough, Chakotay,” Kathryn said. “I’m not quite there.” But she was bucking up against me with her hips, and her gaze drifted down to where we were joined.

“Just keep looking at us together,” I ordered her. “And touch yourself.” I lifted up slightly so that she could get her hand in between us. It wasn’t the most comfortable position for me, but I knew it would keep me from coming right away and would let her stimulate herself. There was a bead of sweat at her right temple and her eyes looked dark, dangerous, as she rested her head against the blanket and worked herself with her hand between us. I thrust into her again and again, slowly at first and then with increasing speed and force, overcome by the tightness and wetness of her, and by the soft high-pitched noises she was making, until I felt her begin to pulse around me. She pulled back her hand then, told me she was coming, and grabbed me by my hips, urging me even more deeply into her. I kept pumping into her, still not at my peak yet, helped her ride out her orgasm while she trembled and murmured against me, her legs tight around my thighs. She kept pulling me into her and eventually I succumbed, reaching my orgasm in slow pulses rather than the sharp bursts I was used to. Something about having my legs tied in place by my pants and knowing she had already had her pleasure, delayed and heightened my orgasm until at last I spilled inside her, grabbing her arms, her face, her breasts, any part of her cool skin that I could touch and stroke.

I pulled out of her, tucked myself back into my pants, and rolled over to lie at her side. “Gods, Kathryn,” I said. “You make me feel like I’m twenty years old again.”

She laughed under her breath, turned on her side to kiss me. Her pants were still half on, half off, and one nipple was showing where I had lifted up her undershirt. I kissed her back, murmuring endearments into her mouth. The sex was good but I couldn’t deny that it was more than just the physical connection between the two of us. I felt passion and love for her, and I wondered how much longer this would go on before we had to talk about this again, had to review or decide again on the parameters of our relationship. She had called me her boyfriend without our ever talking about when dating or sleeping with each other had morphed into relationship, this heady feeling, this sex-mixed-with-love that I had never felt before.

“Well, this is not what I expected from Arizona, either,” Kathryn said suddenly, moving slowly to pull up her pants.

“What did you expect, then?” I asked, still loose from my orgasm, still full of love for her.

“A year ago I didn’t know your name,” she said, not quite answering my question. “And now I can’t imagine a day without you.”

It was as close a declaration of love as I had ever gotten from Kathryn Janeway.

I helped her to her feet. “Come back to my house?” I asked. “Spend the rest of the weekend with me?”

She nodded and we walked back to the main path together.


	10. Chapter 10

It didn’t take long for something ugly to happen.

It was early 2016; we still had our beautiful, righteous Black president in office; the state primaries were just starting to hint at what would happen in November that year; it seemed impossible that we wouldn’t elect a woman next. In retrospect it was the calm before the storm: we had no idea what was coming to us.

I had at last told Sekaya about Kathryn. I was hesitant, in part, because Sekaya had disliked Seska from the start, and I knew the stress that that had added to my already-strained relationship with Ses. It would have made me sad if Sekaya had responded similarly to Kathryn. Fortunately she didn’t, and this also appeared to augur well.

“What’s on your mind, Chak?” my sister asked me later that week, when she came by to pick me up for Leslie’s school play. “It is about that doctor again?”

I sighed. “No point keeping a secret from you, is it?” I said. “We’ve been seeing each other.”

“Has it been a while?” she asked.

“A few months,” I said. “Since September.”

“I figured as much,” Sekaya said. “Glad you shared with me at last.” She sounded gentle, accepting.

“I told you I would talk about it when I was ready,” I pointed out, but I felt ashamed at having kept this from her so long.

“Tell me about her,” Sekaya said abruptly. It was not the question I had anticipated from her, but I told her anyway. I told her how we had first met in college, even though Sekaya already knew that. I told her how I’d forgotten all about Kathryn Janeway until she walked into the clinic and it brought me immediately back to 19 again, how for a while it was as if I saw the younger Kathryn supplanted over her actual, older self, until the two Kathryns collided and became just one, this Kathryn, my Kathryn, the youthful palimpsest erased. I told my sister how that accordioning of time provoked in me both a tremendous nostalgia for the past, and then the desire to take full advantage of the present.

Sekaya seemed to accept the story I told, as persuasively as possible, of an educated doctor who chose to forsake the stimulating intellectual community of Berkeley for the wilds of Arizona and the reservation. She didn’t question me when I told her that Kathryn had been engaged but never married, didn’t question when I told her that Kathryn seemed to respect both my people and my chosen field, despite limited previous exposure to both. She didn’t question the excitement in my voice, or the way I ran my fingers through my hair, or the drift in my conversation as I went from one observation of Kathryn to another. She simply listened to me, nodding, and at last told me simply: “I’m glad for you, Chak. You deserve something good for a change.”

* * *

 

Sekaya was the one who suggested I take Kathryn out of town some time. She pointed out that it had been ages since I’d had a vacation. I booked a room at a nice hotel in Sedona and Kathryn and I planned to drive down one Saturday morning. I was careful to make the reservation for “Dr. Robert Chakotay,” as my father would have told me to do, to be on the safe side.

I can hardly remember the hike we did in the red rocks that first morning, but I do remember falling asleep in the truck as Kathryn drove us back to the hotel, the gentle hum of the motor and the sway of the vehicle putting me into a lazy doze in the afternoon sun.

I woke up to the sound of an angry male voice outside of the truck. Kathryn was nowhere to be seen and she later told me she’d gone inside first, wanting to let me sleep since I was so clearly exhausted.

It took me a few seconds to get my bearings, in which time I perceived not one but two blond men standing on either side of the truck, blocking me in at both sides.

“Is this your truck?” one of them asked. And then, in a terrible American accent: “ _Habla inglés, señor_?

Shaking the sleep from my eyes, I told him yes, it was my truck. I felt dizzy, overheated and slightly sick from dozing in the sun. And angrier by the second.

“You need to move it from here,” the taller man told me, looking down at the dust on the tires. “You know this is a private lot. You can’t park here.”

I shook my head at him. “I’m a guest at the hotel,” I told him.

“Yeah right you are,” he said. He spit on the ground and kicked at a tire of my truck, at the bumper.

“Cut it out!” I told him, unbuckling my seatbelt. “Don’t touch my truck!” I opened the door but he gave me barely any room to step out and when I did, our chests were nearly touching.

“Who you gonna tell?” he sneered at me. “Cops’d love to pick up someone like you, send you back over the border where you belong.”

I heard the voice of my father, the voice of reason, telling me to step aside and walk into the hotel. That’s what he would have done, he would have extricated himself smoothly from the situation, making a joke of it in the end or even inviting the fellows for a drink at the hotel bar to laugh it off together. I was not so patient, nor so generous.

“Get out of my space,” I said icily, and the man took a step backwards. “You don't know who the fuck you are dealing with.”

“Are you threatening me?” he shouted back. “Are you threatening me?” I hadn’t been, but boy was this escalating quickly. I checked his belt to make sure: he wasn’t armed, thank god. His friend began walking away, observing us casually from a distance. He also didn’t appear to be carrying a weapon, but one could never be too careful in Arizona with all the crazy Second Amendment folks driving around. Maybe I’d happened upon the last two rednecks north of the Rio Grande without a gun. My own was in the glove compartment but I knew better than to reach for it.

“Step away from my truck,” I told him firmly.

“Or what?” he asked tauntingly, the sun in his face.

I looked him in the eye. “I don’t think you want to find out.”

“Try me, Redskin!” he said. So he knew I wasn’t Mexican after all, had just said that to get my goat.

I stepped forward but before I could walk away he shoved me against the side of the truck, hard, so hard that the pain made me lose my breath. He put his forearm over my chest, pinning me there. It took me a few seconds to get my bearings again, then I wriggled out of his grasp, pulling his arm down behind him and pushing his chest against the truck’s door. I reached for his other arm and held his hands there together at the base of his spine, pinning him hard against the truck like he had tried to do to me. He kicked at me but missed. There was a reason I had practiced tae kwon do for all those years; it still came in handy from time to time, though it had been a long time since I fought someone outside of the dojo.

The man’s companion still lurked in the background, watching both of us. The tall man turned his head back and swore at me.

“I told you to step away from my truck,” I told him in as menacing a voice as possible. “Now, get out of here, cowboy, unless you really want to see me angry.” I let go of him and walked backwards, keeping my eye on him. My body felt strong, electrified, all my senses alert to the danger before me.

The two men walked away down the street. Cowards.

I turned towards the hotel. There, in the entrance, was standing Kathryn. She shook her head at me. I stared at her, lifting a finger to indicate I wanted her to stay out of it. Once the men were out of sight I went to Kathryn and hustled her back into the hotel entrance.

“Was that really necessary, Chakotay?” she asked me once we were inside. We were standing close together, close enough to touch, but I held back, my body still lit with rage.

I shook my head but inside I was furious. What did she know of anything, after all? What did she know of the thousand small indignities we faced every time we stepped off tribal lands? I heard the voice of my father again:  _It doesn’t matter how many advanced degrees you have, Robert. For some people you’ll always just be a dirty Indian._ He was the one who had encouraged me to learn martial arts in my teens – to settle me, to tame my anger with the strict rules of the Sensei. He had attended every belt test I’d had, even took the time to come to Hanover to watch me pass my black belt in college.  _There are still people who say the only good Indian is a dead Indian,_ he told me.  _But I want you to live a long life._

“I’d say it was necessary,” I said, my anger taking her as its target. “How much did you see?” The man behind the hotel reception raised his head and watched us carefully.

“When I came out there you were shouting at him and he was saying you were threatening him.” Did she really believe that’s what happened? That I was threatening him for no reason? Didn’t she trust me?

“He woke me up and tried to pick a fight with me,” I told her, shaking my head. “For no other reason than that I’m an Indian. He started to kick my truck and then when I got out of it he pushed me against it. But then I got free and gave him a taste of his own medicine. I didn’t even hurt him, just showed him he couldn’t mess with me. That’s all.” There was an ugly taste in my mouth, and I couldn’t keep looking at her. What was that expression in her eyes – doubt? Unease? I took a deep breath and tried to still my racing heart.

“You should have just walked away,” she said. “But if that’s what happened, then it sounds like he provoked you.” She looked around, as if nervous, as if she was about to bolt.

“Damn right he provoked me. Haven’t heard those particular racial slurs in a while.” I laughed bitterly. “And don’t tell me to be the bigger person. That’s the story of my life: walk away and be the bigger person.”

“We should go to the police,” she said. “Make a report. I think I got a pretty good view of him and his companion.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want the police to get involved,” I told her in a low voice, stepping closer. “It’s my word against theirs, and there are two of them.”

“But there are two of us,” she said. “And maybe someone here saw what happened.”

I felt my heart pounding, the thrill of adrenaline still in me.

“Let’s get out of here,” I told her. “I don’t want to be in this town right now. Just forget about it.”

“Calm down,” Kathryn said. “Let’s think it through. What if these two vigilantes are out there harassing other people? Maybe you’re not the first one it’s happened to.”

“I don’t want to calm down, and I don’t want to go to the police, Kathryn. I’d rather just leave it all behind us. Let’s go.” I turned and looked out the hotel entrance, then back at Kathryn.

“But think how it would look: Hopi psychologist gets attacked by racists in Sedona. I can’t see how you wouldn’t be the reliable witness here!” I didn’t want to have to tell her about the police in Arizona, I didn’t want to have to tell her to find some other well-educated brown person to be the poster child for racial profiling.

“It happened to me,” I said, rather heatedly. “I’d rather be the one to decide what to do about it. But if it’s alright with you, I really want go back home.”

She pursed her lips. “Let me get our bags from the room,” she said. “Can you wait two minutes?”

“Of course,” I said. “But I’m driving around the block. Need to clear my head. Meet me on the corner.” I checked the parking lot before I walked out; it was empty, the men had fled.

* * *

 

“Do you want me to drop you off in Flagstaff, or will you come with me back to Second Mesa?” I asked her when she got into the truck.

“I’m coming with you all the way,” she said coolly. “We need to talk, Chakotay. That was dangerous. Those men could have been armed. Provoking them verbally was out of line.”

I felt myself bristling again as I steered the car onto the highway out of Sedona.

“Of course it was dangerous,” I told her. “But you don’t get to decide what is out of line.”

“I think almost getting into a fight in the parking lot of our hotel qualifies as some reason for concern,” she said sharply. “Even if you acted in self-defense. I was a witness, I was a part of it too even if you didn’t mean me to be.”

All of the anger I had felt for those two men turned suddenly into rage at her.

“You don’t have a clue, do you?” I asked, raising my voice. “You have absolutely no idea what it is like to live in Arizona these days if you’re not White.” She rolled down her window and the wind began to blow her hair in light wisps around her face.

“I think I know something about racism, Chakotay,” she said, somewhat defensively. “But that’s not the point. What I’m talking about is how this was a dangerous situation for both of us, and you don’t seem to see that I was scared, too. That I could have been hurt, too. But even if you don’t care about that, I still get to have my own response to it. Even if you don’t agree with my decision, even if you were the one being attacked, I still get my own response.”

“You saw me being attacked but you don’t have to live it every day!” The sun was low on the horizon, a red glow over the desert. “You know, it’s actually legal here for the police to pull me over any time they feel like it, just because I might look Mexican? They can demand my papers and if I don’t happen to have my license on me, they can drag me down to the station. And I can’t do a damn thing about it. I’d have to go along with them. Do you know how humiliating that is? How unjust?”

“I know that,” she said. “It’s terrible. You must have been so scared.”

“No, I don’t think you do know,” I said. “I don’t think you understand. Easy for you to say you understand, when for you driving down to Sedona is about having a nice vacation, seeing the red rocks, buying a few crystals if you’re into that sort of thing.”

“You know very well I’m not,” she said icily. “And don’t think I’m ignorant about the state of this country.” I saw her going one way and I the other, and I couldn't help myself as the breach opened up between us.

“The last time I was in Sedona with my father,” I told her, “they refused to serve us at a restaurant. They told us there were no tables available, but I could see the back patio was wide open. That kind of shit happens all the time out here.”

She grew silent and I turned on the radio, anything to cover the silence between us.

“I knew it was bad here, it’s bad everywhere,” she said at last. “And I’m sorry this has happened to you.” She reached forward and turned the radio off. “But this has happened to both of us, Chakotay. We are both involved, whether you like it or not.”

“Maybe so, but it’s fucking intolerable,” I said, fixated on the topic of racism, feeling the urge to _tell her all_ , to make her open her eyes and _see_. “This is what it’s like to be a brown person here. And if you’re going to be with me, you have to believe what I say about it. You have to listen to me. If I tell you I don’t want to go to the police, you have to trust me that I’ve had some experience with the police around here. When I told you we need to leave back there and you didn’t want to go right away—that pissed me off so much. It pisses me off to have to explain this to you.”

“Of course,” she said. “Of course I didn’t want you to stay around and wait for them to come back. I just said we should think it through first.”

“I thought it through,” I told her. “From the moment I saw those guys outside my car, I knew something was up. And in those situations, if you’re me, you don’t go to the police.”

She was silent for several minutes. I stole a glance at her, at the way she crossed her arms in front of her chest. She was still hung up on that police thing, wanted to do things according to her idea of protocol. Still had that fantasy that the long arc of justice was on our side.

“What do you want from me, then?” she asked, anger in her voice. “I want to help you here. I’m on your side, Chakotay. But you act like I’m just supposed to know what it’s like for you without you telling me. Like I’m just supposed to go along with everything you say, with all your decisions here, merely because this racist incident happened to you. But I was _there,_ Chakotay! My heart was in my throat as I watched you pin that guy down. I thought the other guy might have had a gun. I was about to run inside and call the police – yes, the police – but then they walked away. But I didn’t know where they were going. I didn’t know if they had seen me, too, or if they would come back for more.”

“The police might have listened to you. The whole purpose of the police is to listen to and protect people like you. Not people like me.”

She didn’t respond, just looked out the window. Her cheeks were red and her eyes were shiny. “You’re right,” she said at last. “You’re right.” It should have felt good to hear her say that, but it didn’t soothe me. “And yet – I was there too,” she added.

“I’m still very angry,” I told her, but it didn't feel better to say it.  _You all have lied, who told me time would ease me of my pain._

“I can tell,” she said. “But I don’t think I’m the person you need to be angry at here. The persons you should be angry at are the guys who assaulted you in the parking lot. They’re the enemy – not me.”

“I think it might be better if I drop you off in Flagstaff,” I told her. “I don’t want to have this conversation tonight.”

“We are already having this conversation,” she told me in exasperation. “I think it was inevitable.”

“What do you mean?” I replied, calculating the number of exits before Flagstaff.

“This was bound to come up sooner or later.”

“What was?”

“Our differences. The fact that I’ll never understand your reality. No matter how much I try. Or at least that’s what you seem to think. And every time this comes up I feel like I’m perpetually at a disadvantage with you, not because I lack empathy or even knowledge, but because it seems you’ll always tell me that what I feel or what I know isn’t enough. That I can’t possibly understand you, because I’m not an Indian or not a person of color. But your premise is flawed.”

“How so?”

“First, you have to stop expecting me to be a person of color or comparing me to a person of color. I’m not, clearly, so that can’t be the rubric here. I’m a privileged, highly educated White woman. That’s what you get from me. So start comparing me to the other White people you know. I’m willing to take that comparison, I think I’ll stand up pretty well to that. And then start thinking about what you’d like from a White person, from a privileged White person. About what is realistic for you. I want you to think this through carefully, and I don’t want you to answer right away. Is there actually a place for a White person as a friend of yours? As a colleague? A lover? Or are you always going to compare me to something I am not, wish that I were someone that I cannot possibly be? Because being disadvantaged doesn’t make you the more moral person in every situation, Chakotay. Being disadvantaged doesn’t make you always right. And being privileged doesn’t mean that I don’t deserve an opinion as well.”

There were so many things I wanted to say to her in response, so many bitter thoughts running through my head. But she’d asked me to take my time, and I owed her that much at least.

“I haven’t suffered personally because of racism,” she said. “But you don’t hold a monopoly on suffering, you know.” I wondered what kind of suffering she was going to bring up next, if White tears were going to shut this discussion down.

“Are we going to talk about all the ways you have suffered, now?” I asked her angrily. Way to derail the topic, I thought. But she surprised me with her response.

“I don’t think I should have to bring up a litany of past wrongs that I’ve suffered for you to be able to imagine that maybe, sometime in the course of my own life, I’ve actually suffered as well. And to believe that my own suffering may be what enables me to have empathy for – _compassion,_ “to suffer with” – another. Because I _do_ have compassion for you, Chakotay. I hope I never lose my compassion for others, my desire to right the wrongs of the world. But you have to trust that, for me, it comes from a personal place as well. From my own experience of loss. Even if it’s not as great as your own.”

She had me there.

“This just got real, didn’t it?” she asked. “And as soon as I don’t understand something, as soon as I have a different perspective, you want to call it quits.”

“I need to know you’re in this with me, Kathryn,” I said. But she was right, it had gotten all too real. It was one thing to spend our days hiking in the desert and our nights in bed together, sheltered from the world. It was another entirely to walk out together as couple and see how the world reacted to us, to have her see how it treated me.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” she said. She reached for my hand and I jerked away, pretended I needed to switch gears.

“I don’t know if that’s enough,” I admitted. The highway signs showed the first exit to Flagstaff.

“Well, at least you're being honest,” she said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“I’m here with you, and I’m trying, Chakotay,” she said, sounding exasperated. “I’m trying my best. But you have to think about if you really want what I can give. If that’s enough for you.”

“And if that isn’t enough?”

She sniffed, and then went silent. Her hands were busy, picking at the fabric around her knees. Again I noticed that ring on her littlest finger. Funny, I'd never asked her about it. I’d never asked her about so many things. 

I took the exit for Flagstaff and dropped Kathryn off at her house. She didn't protest again and I wasn't sure if I wanted her to or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edna St. Vincent Millay, blink and you'll miss it.


	11. Chapter 11

I didn’t see Kathryn for the next few weeks. Once again she had changed her shifts so we didn’t overlap, and this time it was a relief to not have to see her when I went into the office. I was glad that I hadn’t mentioned anything to Belanna or Paris about our relationship, because it made it that much easier to not have to explain anything to anyone else. I was still trying to make sense of what had happened to us, not just in Sedona but on the car ride back, and admittedly her absence gave me the space to mull over what had happened. Or, rather, to brood a bit too much over it all.

Then, one weekend, I got a text from her.

 _—Do you want me to leave?—,_ it said. I read it and reread it, then put my phone away for a few hours and went to work in my garden. But I kept feeling the urge to go back into the house, to answer the text or to even call her, and I had to remind myself to stay calm, to not act rashly. Finally, that evening, I wrote her back.

 _—Do you want to go? —_ I texted her.

She responded immediately.  _—When we started seeing each other, we agreed I would leave the clinics if this didn’t work out. —_

 _—Do you want to go?—_ I repeated.

I could see the dots indicating that she was typing, but the words took a few minutes to materialize on my screen.

 _—I’d rather not.—_ she wrote simply, and then another long pause.  _–But I will if that’s what you decide.—_

 _—I don’t want to make that decision for you.—_ I wrote. I honestly didn’t know if I wanted her to go or to stay.

_—Can we talk about this? —_

_—Now? —_

_—Yes, now. —_

_—Should I call you? —_ I wrote.

_—Where are you? —_

_—My house. —_

_—Which one? —_

_—Desert house. Second Mesa. —_

_—I’m at Miranda’s. Can I come by? —_

Now I was the one who hesitated before responding.  _—Yes. —_

Kathryn rang my bell forty minutes later. She was wearing a dark hoodie which she pulled even closer around her, as if for comfort. Without her usual eye makeup she looked younger, more naïve, even a bit lost.

“Thanks for agreeing to see me,” she said.

“Of course,” I said, rather coolly. “Come in.” I let her in and we were careful not to touch each other as I led her into the living room. She sat on the couch and I sat in an armchair across from her. The last time she was here, we had both shared the couch together. “Are you cold?” I asked her. “I can light a fire.” She shook her head.

“Chakotay, I—” she began.

I waited.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come,” she at last burst out. Then, “What are we doing?”

“You tell me,” I said.

“I didn’t like how we ended things after Sedona,” she said. “I should have gone back with you. We should have talked it through.”

“I thought we  _did_  talk it through,” I pointed out. “And we didn’t agree.”

“So we agreed to disagree?” she asked wryly, looking up at me with wretched eyes.

“Something like that,” I muttered. “Look, Kathryn, I don’t know if there’s much point to this.”

She looked stunned and I realized I had hurt her.

“Then maybe I should go,” she said slowly, beginning to rise from the couch. She seemed slightly unsteady, as if tipsy, but I knew she would never drive while under the influence.

“You don’t have to leave the clinics,” I said quickly. “Not on my account. You’re a good doctor. The patients love you.”

“I should go home,” she repeated.

I saw the pain again in her face and wanted to reach out, to comfort her, to hold her in my arms one last time, to not make it the last. But she moved away too quickly and was at my door before I had a chance to respond, opening the latch and letting herself, looking back only long enough to say, “See you at the clinic, Chakotay,” in that low voice of hers.

I let her go and this time I knew didn’t want to. 

* * *

It wasn’t as awkward as I had expected to see Kathryn at the clinic. She had her office and her patients and her work, and I had mine. We met at weekly staff meetings, of course, but we had never made those anything less than professional, so it was easy to keep them as such. If I was a little stiffer towards her, a little more reluctant to share my ideas or compliment her work, then I don’t believe anyone noticed the change. Belanna had already resigned herself to the apparent coldness between Kathryn and myself, and this was no different.

But I felt the difference between the two of us, I noticed the way Kathryn avoided my eyes when we passed in the hall; I noticed she no longer consulted me as frequently about our mutual patients; and I noticed my newfound jealousy when she stayed late after work to talk to Tom Paris, her door closed in ostensible protection of patient privacy, as she had so often invited me into her office in the past.

We didn't talk again about what we had been to each other. Instead, I threw myself into my work and took on more patients in my private practice, decided at last to finish that journal article my father and I had been writing when he died, signed up for one conference after another on minority mental health, and reactivated my membership to the Society for Indian Psychologists. I even considered traveling to Standing Rock that spring, to lend my support in whatever way I could. Janeway approved my requests for leave without question, signed off on my expenses, and generally left me alone. So I spent a pretty busy spring and summer reconnecting with likeminded colleagues, which left me feeling inspired and informed if not any less lonely for Kathryn.

For the first time in many years I decided to go to the annual American Psychological Association convention that summer, although I had let my membership lapse after we all got word of some psychologists’ involvement in the torture of Guantánamo detainees. I wasn’t exactly thrilled about supporting the organization but there were going to be some interesting discussions there about the Hoffman Report and human rights abuses, so I figured it would be an interesting convention to show up to at last, if only to be one of the rabble-rousers. Besides which, my old grad school advisor Magdalena Johnson would be in Denver, and I never passed up an opportunity to see Magda.

I didn’t expect to meet Janeway’s long-time colleague Dr. Ali at the convention, but on the second day a tall, slender Black man sat next to me at a talk, and I happened to notice his nametag.  _Tuvaq Ali, Tuvaq Ali, now why was that name so familiar to me?_

“Dr. Ali,” I began, turning towards him and offering him my hand. His fingers were cold and dry in mine. “I work with a former colleague of yours, Dr. Janeway. My name is Robert Chakotay and I’m with the Indian Health Service in Flagstaff.”

“Dr. Chakotay,” he said, nodding his head carefully. “A pleasure to meet you. Dr. Janeway has mentioned you before.”

“Likewise,” I told him, smiling despite his stern face.

“May I suggest we pay attention to the lecture, Dr. Chakotay, and leave the socializing for later?”

“Of course,” I readily agreed, settling back into my chair for the rather dullish lecture about the sequelae of childhood trauma, if one could actually make the topic dull.

So this was Tuvaq, Kathryn’s old friend. I wondered what he was doing at a psychology conference, but then I looked at the program and realized he was a co-author on the paper that was being presented. He sat absolutely still throughout the lecture, only moving to raise his hand when an audience member asked a question. The symposium chair signaled for him to speak and, rather unusually, he stood from his seat and responded while standing to the man who had asked the question.

“I believe you will find, Dr. Rainier, that early childhood adversity not only predicts psychological outcomes but also cytokine function in adults. If you examine the research by, for example, teams at Columbia-Presbyterian and UCSF, you’ll see similar outcomes in cytokine and HPA-axis activity for survivors of childhood sexual abuse.” He droned on some more about biomarkers and factor loadings and I was puzzled to imagine what Kathryn had seen in him, this seemingly dry researcher.

Afterwards, as I rose from my chair to head to the next lecture, he spoke to me again. “A word, Dr. Chakotay,” he said quietly. I stayed behind, watching the room clear out. “I would like to invite you to dinner,” he said stiffly, as if practiced, and I wondered idly if he was on the spectrum.

“Of course, Dr. Ali,” I said.

“You may call me Tuvaq,” he said. “As we are both acquainted with Dr. Janeway, it would be propitious for us to know each other better. I am staying at the Marriott. May I suggest we meet in their lobby at six o’clock and then proceed to a dining establishment together?”

I almost laughed at his formality but then remembered the diagnosis I had him all but pegged at. “Of course,” I said as graciously as possible. After all, I didn’t have any other plans, I might as well have dinner with this unusual friend of Kathryn’s.

* * *

Tuvaq Ali was indeed a strange dinner companion. For starters, he had an astounding array of food allergies, and so ordering the meal was somewhat complicated. He at last decided on a plain chicken breast with rice and vegetables –  _no nightshades, if you please_ – and I felt almost guilty for the gluten and tomatoes in my pasta Bolognese. Second, he spent nearly the entirety of the meal talking about minutiae related to the paper his cowriter had presented, which if had been dull in person, was undoubtedly duller when reviewed again by Tuvaq over dinner. To make matters worse, he insisted on telling me, apropos of nothing, that the Dakota Access protests were “illogical” and destined to fail. I was ready to pay for the whole meal myself, just to get out of there already.

Therefore I was quite astonished when, over a cup of herbal tea at the end of the meal, Tuvaq told me there was something I should know about Kathryn Janeway.

“Am I right to assume that Dr. Janeway has not told you about her experience in Rio?” he asked.

I sat back, startled by the question. “No,” I said,” shaking my head, “I don’t know anything about that.”

He paused, bringing both his hands together in a prayer position under his chin. “I don’t know that I am the most appropriate person to tell you this story,” he began, “but seeing as I was also there, it is as much my story as hers. Therefore, I feel somewhat justified in sharing this with you.”

Now I was very curious.

He continued. “I first met Kathryn Janeway in Rio de Janeiro in the early aughts, when I was conducting research on compromised immune response among HIV carriers of African descent in Rio’s slums. Janeway was a medical student studying abroad for a year at the Universidade Fluminense.” I looked at him blankly. I did not know she had lived in Brazil, too. “She was assigned to me as my research assistant,” he continued. “Given her previous knowledge of Spanish, she learned Portuguese more rapidly than the other American students. After a few months, I felt confident that she could assist me in recruiting participants for my study. She went with me to visit the various  _favelas_ where we had already recorded a high incidence of HIV infections. This work, in itself, was quite safe: she was always accompanied by me and a Brazilian colleague, and despite her appearance she did not attract undue attention from the  _favela’s_ inhabitants, who were accustomed to foreign doctors and nurses visiting their clinics.

“The trouble began when Kathryn’s father and her fiancé visited her in Rio shortly before  _carnaval_.”

“Is that like Mardi Gras?” I asked him, wondering if this fiancé was Mark, the same fiancé that she had mentioned to me before, but arguing to myself that it was unlikely that she had been engaged so long without marrying. Another fiancé, then, that she had never told me about. Another thing I didn’t know about Kathryn but that this man clearly did.

"Yes,” he replied. “You have undoubtedly seen images of Brazilians dancing the samba for this much-revered celebration of excess and impiety before the  _quaresma,_ or lent.” My mind went to images of lithe women in feathered bikinis; yes, I had some idea of what  _carnaval_ was like. “As I was saying, her father and fiancé came to visit. A few days before the event she took them to the Rocinha  _favela_  to see the preparations for the parade, all the floats and samba schools lining up to participate.”

Where was he going with this? I didn’t see the point, yet. “Dr. Ali—” I began.

“Her father and her fiancé were caught in the crossfire of the two rival gangs of Rocinha. Quite literally caught in the crossfire, Dr. Chakotay. Kathryn had gone to speak to a woman she knew, a participant in our study, when her father and fiancé were gunned down in the street just outside where the samba school had gathered to practice. There were twelve additional causalities, the rest all Brazilian. Dr. Janeway, senior, died on the spot, and Kathryn arrived just in time to hold her father in her arms as he died. Mr. Tighe died in the hospital a few hours later of internal bleeding related to his wounds. Naturally it made international news, but I don’t know if you would remember from the time.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. “Was Tighe her fiancé?”

“Yes, Justin Tighe was Kathryn’s fiancé,” he repeated. “He was a doctor too, recently graduated from his residency in oncology. I am telling you this, Dr. Chakotay, because it is something that I do not think Kathryn would share with you. Yet I believe it is important for you to know this if you are to understand who she is.”

I felt uneasy with this new knowledge of Kathryn, uncertain that she would want me to know this if she had not shared it with me herself.

“What kind of relationship do you believe I have with Dr. Janeway?” I asked him cautiously.

He finished chewing his chicken before answering, laying his knife and fork next to each other on the plate to signal he was finished. “I know that you were lovers,” he said in that arch, polite tone of his. “And I know that you had a disagreement and are currently estranged from each other.”

“Well, aren’t you well informed,” I said dryly.

“I come in peace,” he said slowly. “I would not have shared this with you if I had not thought it needed to be said. Kathryn is hurting, and she has been hurt before.” He paused and then stated, almost defensively: “Although I do not feel sexual attraction towards others, I care deeply for Kathryn in my own way.”  _Too much information,_ I thought. _He really is a tad bizarre._ Yet I found myself liking and trusting this man, who Kathryn had described as one of her oldest and truest friends. His odd mannerisms and awkwardness aside, I could tell that he clearly cared about Kathryn, enough to – I suspected – plan this dinner with me for the express purpose of telling me about her experience in Rio.

“Thank you for sharing this with me, Tuvaq,” I said, using his given name for the first time. “I am not sure what to make of it, but I do appreciate the confidence in me.”

“You are a psychologist, Dr. Chakotay,” he said. “You have studied and are familiar with the deepest realms of human experience. I am no longer a clinician, and I am not sure that what she experienced afterwards would be most accurately classified as PTSD, but I do know that Kathryn suffered immensely from what happened in Rio. I also know that, working in Oakland, she never held that experience against any of her patients with violent histories. She worked hard to ensure that she would not be biased against the people she treated.”

I looked at him more closely. Just how much did he know, after all, of my estrangement from Kathryn? Did he know of the incident in Sedona and our argument afterwards? What exactly had Kathryn told him about me? He appeared to be playing the matchmaker here, or at least the restorer of certainties, the undoer of knots. For I was certain now that I had done Kathryn an injustice in not asking her more about herself. The ring on her finger continued to bother me; I wanted to know now if that Tighe fellow had given it to her, or if it was her father’s, or simply a relic of her schooling, a signet for her degree. I thought of all the other questions I had not asked her, either: why she had decided to become a doctor, and what kept her in it; if she had ever wanted to have a family and if she thought it was too late; what exactly had caused her to end her relationship with Mark; and what she thought of me when she found me in the parking lot pinning that man against my truck.

There were so many things to ask her and she was in Flagstaff and I was in Denver, ten hours drive away even if I decided to leave the convention early and rent a car to get back home.

I had been so caught up in my own suffering that I had overlooked hers entirely. And though they were not equivalent -- when could they ever be? -- hers at least deserved to be understood.

 _An unforgiveable oversight for a psychologist to make_ , I thought. I thought of the other women in my life who would be all too happy to give me a talking-to in this situation, the Sekayas and Anas and Magdas of my acquaintance. So many sharp, insightful women, so many women who had shown me how to be a man, and I had let them down, I had let all of them down. I had presumed too much, I had been arrogant even if I was right, and I had lost someone I cared about because I was too stubborn to listen to her and too caught up in my own righteous rage.

If I had been a younger man, I might have set off for home that very night, determinedly driving for as long as it might take to reach the woman I loved. But I am forty-one years old, and did not know if such a gesture would be taken well by its recipient or if it would appear the crazed behavior of an obsessed ex-boyfriend.

So I remained a few days longer at the convention, sat through lecture after lecture, all the while planning in my head what I might say – or ask – Kathryn when next I saw her.


	12. Chapter 12

Kathryn was gone when I got back to Flagstaff. “Went to go visit family in Indiana,” Paris told me: “a medical emergency.” The details were vague and troubling.

I had anticipated seeing her again that day, had planned in my head all the ways our next conversation might go, preparing myself to eat a good dose of humble pie and start listening to her for a change. The irony was not lost on me that, like no small number of psychologists, I had failed to act in the way that I would have encouraged my patients to do. How easy it is to listen to others’ lives and find the hidden knot, how easy to sit back and help them unravel the tangled mess they have made, and how difficult it is to do this for oneself at times. Surely Ana had seen all this so clearly in my case: from the very beginning she had commented on how I was losing sight of Kathryn the individual, and I had not heeded her words. Only one of my numerous regrets, at this point.

I recalled that my dreams of blindness had returned in last few months, and I almost laughed at myself, it was so obvious in retrospect. Loss of vision was a recurring theme in my dreams, present since I first got glasses in my teens: I’d be in some ordinary situation, seeing a patient or working on my house or driving to Flagstaff, when suddenly I realized I didn’t have my contacts on and the world around me was blurred, indistinct, foreign: panic accompanied by frantic activity to locate my lost lenses. I’d had so many of these dreams over the years that I’d even mentioned them to Magda at some point, back when I distrusted dream interpretation but still gleaned the meaning behind them. I’d described them as a dream a patient had had, and she’d urged me to ask the patient to tell me anything that came to mind from the dream, just the usual instructions for dream analysis. It didn’t take a genius to conclude that the dream was telling me there was something I was overlooking, some lacuna I could not see, but I was darned if I could make it out by myself. It is so hard to know what one is missing without another’s eyes to see otherwise. And it was nearly impossible to make things right with Kathryn without hearing her first.

With that in mind, I sent Kathryn a text.

_—Tom told me your mother is ill. I am very sorry, Kathryn.—_

I had to turn my phone’s ringer off while I was seeing my patients, but I checked it compulsively at ten minutes to the hour for the rest of the day. No response, not even the little time stamp that indicated she had read it, although she could have turned that off so I’d have no idea if she’d even seen it.

Late that night, and even later still in Indiana, I received the following message:

_—Thank you—_

And then I watched the busy text bubble appear and disappear on her screen for several minutes, waiting on pins and needles for her to say more.

_—Thank you for writing. —_

_—Of course—_ I texted back. I wanted to say more but I wanted to follow her lead and not cause her any further distress at what was likely a difficult time. _—Let me know if there’s anything I can do at the clinic to keep up with things. —_

 _—Belanna is covering for me this week,—_ she wrote. _—I hope I don’t have to stay longer than that. —_

 _—Stay as long as you need. We’ll manage. —_ There were no time stamps acknowledging receipt of my messages, so she must have turned them off.

_—Thank you Chakotay. Goodnight. —_

_—Goodnight, —_ I wrote back.

Thus began a rather clipped correspondence that lasted not the one week she had anticipated, but dragged itself out over the two months she spent in Indianapolis caring for her mother, going with her to doctor’s appointments, and shuttling her nephews to school so her sister Phoebe could spend the night at the hospital. The details came out in fits and starts, and days passed when I despaired at hearing from her again. I read and re-read her messages, trying to understand the subtext, trying to sense from those ephemeral letters whether or not she wanted my concern.

 _—How are things at Second Mesa? —_ she’d write.

 _—Pretty normal, —_ I’d respond. _—The usual number of crises. —_

 _—I’ll be here longer, —_ she wrote. _—You might have to call IHS for a per diem. —_

_—Did you tell Belanna? —_

_—Yes. —_

And then nothing for days, and she would start up again.

_—How’s the clinic? —_

_—Getting along. Patients ask about you. —_

_—That’s nice to hear. —_

_—Gotta run, early session. —_

_—Bye Chakotay. —_

Then I got in the habit of texting her occasionally, a short greeting, nothing obtrusive. I would have stopped if she hadn’t responded, but she always did.

_—How’s it going over there? —_

_—My mother started chemo. I’ll have to stay here longer. —_

_—I’m sorry. Sorry she’s sick I mean. Glad she’s getting chemo. —_

_—It’s stage 2 so the prognosis is good at this point. —_

_—Glad to hear. Take care. —_

_—You too, —_ she wrote, and my heart soared.

 _—What do you want Miranda to do about the cabin? —_ I asked her.

_—Oh no. I sent her a check with a note. Did she not get it?_

_—I’ll check with her. —_

_—Can you tell her I’ll keep paying for it until I come back? I can resend the check if it was lost in the mail. —_

We hired the per diem, who was a perfectly adequate, though somewhat elderly, physician from Tucson.

 _—How’s the new doctor? —_ she wrote another day.

 _—Fine. —_ I wanted to tell her that he was nothing like her, wanted to tell her it wasn’t just the patients who missed her, but I’d be overstepping the mark.

_—Let me know if you think I should come back. —_

_—Don’t come back for the clinic’s sake, —_ I wrote. _—We’ll manage. —_

 _—A distraction might be nice right about now, —_ she responded. I smiled at that.

 _—Are you bored? —_ I asked.

She responded several days later. _—I’ve never liked Indianapolis, —_ she wrote. _—It’s hot and humid this time of year. —_

 _—Arizona isn’t much better, —_ I responded. It had been more than a year since she had first come to Flagstaff. _—But you’re missing some nice monsoons. —_

_—Tell me about them. —_

_—I’ll send you a picture next time it rains. —_

_—Tell me about them. I missed them this year.—_

And I miss you, I thought.

Belanna tried to set me up with a friend of hers, a Swedish nurse named Annika. I didn’t even let her show me a photo. I was still holding out hope.

 _—Yesterday I woke up and there was thunder in the distance and then the rains came rolling in. —_ I wrote.

_—What was it like? —_

_—I had forgotten what water smelled like until this month. —_ Then the rain had come in torrents, rolling down the canyons and making pools out of hollows, rivers out of desert washes.

_—I love the rain. Sometimes we get big thunderstorms rolling over the prairie here. I missed that when I was living in California.—_

_—Here you can tell when the rains are coming, —_ I wrote. _—You can see them from a distance. Maybe it’s the same in Indiana. —_

_—Yes it’s the same. —_

_—There was some hail that destroyed my peaches, —_ I wrote, trying to keep the conversation going. _—And all the squash are getting powdery mildew. —_

 _—How’s the garden otherwise? —_ She rarely asked me a personal question so I was surprised.

_—I’ve put most of the beds under netting to protect from the hail. —_

_—That bad? —_

I laughed out loud. _—It’s been worse, —_ I wrote.

_—What are you harvesting these days? —_

_—Brb. Patient here. —_

_—OK.—_

And then, a few hours later, we resumed again.

 _—You never told me what you are growing, —_ she said.

 _—I was surprised you asked, —_ I wrote. Then I waited with my heart in my throat for her response.

_—I wanted to know. —_

_—Carrots and tepary beans and corn, mostly. —_

She sent me a few emojis of fruits and vegetables, which made me laugh.

 _— What are tepary beans? —_ she wrote.

 _—Just the native beans from this area._  
_I’ll save some beans for you if you like._  
 _They’ll keep. —_

_—I’d like that.  
Will give me a reason to come back. — _

I hoped she had other reasons to return here.

 _—I’m going car camping with Belanna and Tom this weekend, —_ I wrote her later. _—I’ll be out of cell range for a while. —_

_—Where are you going? —_

_—Near Monument Valley. —_

_—Send me photos then? Missing the desert. —_

_—The desert isn’t going anywhere. —_

It was good to reconnect with Belanna outside of work and it was touching to see her romance with Tom develop after watching them flirt and argue and be awkward around each other for so long. I didn’t even feel like the third wheel around them, and that was something.

 _—Election news is getting weird, —_ Kathryn wrote one day in late summer.

_—Tell me about it. —_

_—Do you think he might win? —_

_—It’s entirely possible, —_ I responded.

_—I can’t stand to watch the news.—_

_—Then don’t. —_

_—Maybe it’s time for me to establish residency in Arizona. —_ Did that mean she was planning to come back?

_— ? —_

_—So I can vote there instead of Cali. —_

I hesitated before responding:

_—We’d all like to see you again. —_

A long pause, the empty bubble indicating she was typing, reworking her words

_—Even you? —_

_—Especially me. —_

She didn’t respond for a few days and I was crestfallen. And then:

_—Good morning, Chakotay. —_

_—Morning. —_

_—What’s your day like? —_

_—Just the usual. Flagstaff then private practice in the evening. —_

_—Who are your private practice patients? —_

_—You know I can neither confirm nor deny… —_

_—Lol._  
_I don’t need to know who they are._  
 _Just interested in what other work you do. —_

_—Difficult to characterize but I guess, broadly speaking, trauma?  
And everything that entails. —_

_—Geez.  
Don’t you ever get a break? —_

_—What do you mean? —_ I asked.

_—Your clinic patients aren’t exactly easy. —_

_—I knew what I was getting into, —_ I wrote.

_—Well so did I, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. —_

_—It’s never easy.  
But it’s worth it._

_— Gotta fight the good fight?_  
_Keep the darkness at bay?_  
 _Etc. —_

_—Something like that. —_

_—Why did you decide to be a psychologist? —_

_—You mean, why didn’t I become a doctor? —_ I asked.

_—You are a doctor. —_

_—A physician, then. —_

_—Your grades must have been good enough to get into medical school. —_

_—I didn’t want to go to medical school. —_

_—Clearly but you haven’t answered the question, —_ she wrote.

 _—So persistent._  
_All right, then._  
 _Because I saw what my father and mother did but I liked the stories more._  
 _Stories behind people’s lives. —_

_—I know what you mean. Sometimes I wish I’d gone into psychiatry. —_

_—Really? —_

_—I enjoyed my psych rotation. —_

_—So why not? —_

_—I enjoyed most of my rotations.  
But I liked seeing the full spectrum. I couldn’t stand to specialize. Family practice made the most sense.—_

_—Not very prestigious, though. —_ I ribbed her.

_—My father wasn’t happy about it, that’s for sure. —_

_—I don’t how he could have failed to have been proud of you. —_

_—Oh, he was proud of me. A bit too proud of me,—_ she wrote.

_—Overbearing? —_

_—At times. He thought he knew what was best for me. —_

_—Sounds like a lot of fathers I know, —_ I wrote.

_—I didn’t agree with him, naturally.  
Was your father disappointed you didn’t become a physician? —_

_—Nah. I think he enjoyed always being the one with the most degrees in the house. —_

_—Sounds like he was a character. —_

_—Lol.  
You don’t know the whole of it. —_

_—Maybe you’ll tell me some day, —_ she wrote.

_—Some day I hope I will. —_

I wondered afterwards what she had thought of my trauma specialization. Certainly I was kicking myself for not having noticed the signs earlier in her: the avoidance of certain topics, her reluctance to share too much with me, her reaction to the potential violence of the situation in Sedona. She must have known how easily tensions could tip into aggression, aggression into violence. And she must have seen her share of violence in Oakland: had it become too much for her at last? Those constant reminders of her past? Had she imagined that a rural practice would be simpler?

These were the questions I wanted to ask her now, but I couldn’t do so without betraying what Tuvaq had told me. Kathryn would have to come to me on her own terms, if at all – that much I knew from my own work with survivors. You couldn’t prize the memories out of people, force them to tell what was too painful to contemplate. As a beginning therapist I had always wanted to go straight to the heart of the matter, but had learned soon enough from Magda that the direct approach often scared people away. You had to sidestep the central issue until, one day, they felt safe enough to speak of it, and then you could not do much else but hold them through their pain and be their sacred witness.

 _—Where are you headed today, Kathryn? —_ I wrote the next day.

_—Nothing interesting. Grocery store and laundry in the morning. Then some work on an article I’m writing before picking up Phoebe’s kids from school. —_

_—Sounds like you’re keeping busy. —_

_—It’s a very domestic sort of life. Not exactly my forte. —_ That made me smile.

_—At least you’ll get a publication out of it. —_

_—Small recompense. —_

_—What’s the article? —_

_—Just a lit review of some of the early childhood adversity research.  
Tuvaq has been bugging me about it for months but I didn’t have the time to finish it until now. —_

_—Sounds interesting.  
I’d like to read it when you’re done.—_

_—Watch out, I might take you up on the offer. —_

_—I hope you do. :)_  
_Listen I gotta run._  
 _Patients keep coming. —_

_—Busy man. —_

_—Over and out. —_

That night, for the first time, I dreamed of Kathryn.

I dreamt I was planting in my garden when I smelled the air fill with orange blossoms. I turned to see who was there.

Kathryn came to me in a white dress with calla lilies in her hair, her face upturned and radiant. I walked towards her and planted a kiss on her forehead, then one on her nose, and one on each cheek. She sighed into me, stepping into my arms, and I held her tightly as she murmured sweet words under her breath in an unknown language. She then took my hand and brought it to her belly, let my fingers rest on the small mound beneath her navel. Her stomach was ripe and rounded by the babe within. In gentle adoration I bent to kiss her mouth. “It’s a fish,” she told me. “I am carrying a fish.”

Her stomach was tight as a ball, but I felt no movement from within of fish. Instead, I felt a round knob that could have been a head, a bend that must have been the back, and I sensed two feet pushing against the membrane, finding the bounds that kept them there.

“It’s not a fish,” I told her firmly. “It’s a baby. You’re going to have a baby.”

“Not a baby! It can’t be a baby, it’s a fish.”

And then we were in water together, a current so fast that it would have pushed us over if we weren’t grasping each other. The sky was dark and the stars were barely visible, but I wasn’t afraid.

I looked down in the water and realized we were surrounded by fish: a school of tiny, glowing animals darting underneath us, swimming between our legs, tickling our knees. Each fish was like a small shooting star and my gaze got lost in their movement. I was amazed at their beauty and grasped Kathryn hand so that she would join in my excitement.

Kathryn laughed and pointed. “I told you, Chakotay!”

It was an odd dream and difficult for me to crack. The pregnancy bit was obvious enough: a barely hidden yearning to join together more fully with Kathryn, even if the pregnancy was merely metaphorical (as dream pregnancies usually are). But then the absurdity, with that typical dream logic, of Kathryn claiming she had a fish in her belly. There was something monstrous in that trade, something I couldn’t quite understand, and I was reminded of legends of mermaids and selkies and sea witches. On the other hand, the emotional arc of the dream had ranged from adoration to astonishment to anger or disagreement and, finally, a shared sense of awe at the perfect movement of the fish around us. Perhaps that was the meaning of the dream, the classic rupture-and-repair dynamic that every therapist was schooled in. In any case, it augured well for us, and the sense-memory of those star-like fish stayed with me for days.

 _—Chakotay, —_ Kathryn wrote one night shortly after, _—How did you deal with your father’s death? —_ I felt a shiver down my spine and my fingers trembled on the screen as I tried to respond to her.

_—What is going on? Did something happen? —_

_—Nothing yet. I'm at the ICU waiting for my mom to come out of surgery. —_

_—I didn’t know they were operating. —_

_—They're in there with her right now. —_

_—Are you afraid it won’t go well? —_ I wrote her.

There was a pause before she answered. _—I haven’t stopped being afraid since I came to Indiana. —_

_—It must be frightening to see your mother so sick. —_

_—I had no idea it would be this bad. That’s why I asked you about your father. You told me once that he had been ill for a long time. —_

_—Yes, he was, but I think that’s a conversation best left for in person. Unless you want to call me? —_ I wrote. I hadn’t dared to suggest a phone call earlier, but this seemed to warrant it.

She waited several minutes before responding.

_—Not tonight, Chakotay. But soon? —_

_—Whenever you wish. —_

It was two more weeks before Kathryn came back to Arizona. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am really enjoying all of the thoughtful comments here and appreciate all of the interest in this work, which far exceeds my expectations for an AU that deals with contemporary (racial) issues. Thank you to all who are reading.


	13. Chapter 13

I got a call from Kathryn late one Friday evening several weeks later. The air had felt heavy all day, and the clouds hung low over the mountains.

“Is everything OK with your mother?” I asked immediately.

“She’s fine. I’m fine. That’s not why I'm calling. Chakotay—I'm back.”

I looked out my window, where the sun was just fading over the desert. “Where are you right now?”

“I’m at Miranda’s. Can I come over? Is it too late?”

“It’s not too late,” I said bluntly.

“See you in half an hour,” she said.

I spent the time tidying up from dinner and putting the house in better order, but the time couldn’t pass quickly enough. I was both nervous and eager to see her and I kept running over potential scenarios in my head. Kathryn had surprised me, not letting me know she was coming back, and I was afraid that meant she was just coming back to get her things before moving away for good.

When Kathryn rang my bell, I did everything I could to appear as calm as possible. I opened the door wide, signaled for her to come in, and pointedly stepped back when she entered rather than give her the customary kiss on the cheek. The autumn night was already cool, and she wore a striped poncho-shaped shawl over black jeans and a black shirt.

“Have a seat,” I told her, indicating the couch. “Can I get you a drink? Whiskey? Wine?”

“Just water,” she said, shaking her head from side to side. I noticed her hair was damp and fragrant, as if she had recently showered. I went to the kitchen and poured sparkling water into wine glasses for both of us.

“How’s your mother?” I asked her as I handed her the water. She took it from me but then her hand slipped and she spilled some water on her lap.

“Dammit,” she cried, standing up suddenly.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you a towel,” I said, walking quickly to the kitchen. When I came back she had taken off the poncho and spread it over the hearth to dry. Underneath she wore a scoop-neck black shirt and a fine gold chain around her neck. She took the towel from me and ran it over her shirt, soaking up the rest of the water. I looked away so it wouldn’t appear that I was staring at her, then went to get her more water. When she was finished cleaning up I sat down next to her on the couch, spread one arm over the back of the seat but kept a careful distance.

Kathryn looked at me. “My mother’s going to be fine,” she said. “Thank you for asking.”

I nodded at her. “Glad to hear. You’ve all been through a rough patch.”

“No rougher than most families,” she said, almost careflessly.

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“Oh, because it’s not too unusual to have a sick parent at our age,” she said, taking a sip of water and looking at me over the rim of the glass.

“Doesn’t make it any easier,” I responded.

“I suppose it doesn’t,” she admitted.

“So why did you come back to Arizona now?” I asked Kathryn. “I assume your mother needs some kind of aftercare from her surgery?”

“Aftercare for which there are plenty of qualified people in Indiana. No, Chakotay, it was time for me to come back. I can’t abandon my patients,” she said, “and I can’t stand to walk away from a challenge.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Are we really so difficult out here?” I raised my glass and she clinked hers against it.

“Not the patients, Chakotay. You— _you’re_ the challenge.”

I made a scoffing sort of sound to hide how much those words meant to me.

“ _I’m_ the challenge?” I asked.

“Yes, you,” she said with a sigh, leaning back into the couch. “You know how to be damn near impossible, and still—”

I looked down and smiled.

“Look, Chakotay, I came here tonight for a reason. There are things I need to say to you,” she pronounced with resolution, squaring herself and turning her body to face me on the couch.

“Hold on,” I said. “If we’re going to have this conversation it needs to be more comfortable in here. Your hair is wet and you’re shivering. Let me bring you a blanket and get a fire started.” Honestly, I needed time to think.

She nodded and I went to bring her a blanket from the other room, then I brought in some firewood from outside. Kathryn snuggled into the blanket on the couch while I worked on starting the fire. I forgot to open the flue at first and smoke began to come into the room, but I managed to reach my hand up and open it without burning myself. The first fire in the fall was always a bit iffy, I was never sure if the firewood would be dry enough but this wood caught easily and there was a fire roaring in no time. I looked over at Kathryn from time to time as I built the fire and each time she was looking back at me, watching me with her legs curled up underneath her like a small child.

“Mind if I have some whiskey, even if you don’t want any?” I asked her.

“Not at all,” she said. “Pour me a finger, not anything more.”

I came back with the two drinks and joined her on the couch again. “What was it you wanted to tell me?” I asked her.

She looked bashful all of a sudden. “I’m not sure where to start, Chakotay. There’s so much to say.”

“Just start at the beginning,” I told her. My hand was next to hers on the seat and I had to resist the urge to take her fingers in mine.

She shook her head. “No, first I need to apologize to you.”

“For what?” I said.

“For how I acted in Sedona.” I kept looking at her, willing her to continue. “I’ve thought about it so much since then. There were so many times I wanted to talk to you about it, and I didn’t. I need to apologize for that, too: for letting this go on too long between us.” My breath caught in my throat. We were really having this conversation after all this time.

”Yes,” I agreed. “Yes, you let it go on too long.” I took a sip of my whiskey, game face on, and waited for her to continue.

”I came out of the hotel and saw you pinning him down and in that second I assumed the worst.” She cracked her knuckles and I had to hold back the urge to hold her hands still; her motions made me nervous.

”You assumed I had started it?” I said coldly. Game face on, face on…

”I was so confused about what was happening,” she said, faltering at not being able to read my expression.

”You didn’t trust me,” I pointed out. “I think that’s what has been the most painful for me in all of this.”

She hung her head. “I cannot tell you how sorry I am. You have been so patient with me, so considerate about my mother. And still—what more can I say? I’ve really messed up here. I let you down when you needed me to be there with you. And I just want you to know that I am sorry.”

“It is still really hurtful for me to think about what happened,” I admitted. “Though I do appreciate the apology.” I heard a branch tapping at the window; the wind was picking up.

“I talked about this a lot with my friend Tuvaq,” she said.

“What did he have to say?” I still kept my expression neutral, but it was getting harder to do so. I wanted to smile at her, reach out my hand to her, invite her back in – but I knew it was too soon.

“Tuvaq – well, besides point out, as you tried to do, that I was totally acting from my own position as a White woman — well, he wouldn’t assuage my guilt but he also didn’t let me wallow in it. Told me I needed to talk to you. Pointed out that my guilt wasn’t enough without an attempt at repair. And I then wanted to talk to you, but then my mother got sick and I was too distracted to think it through.”

“Tuvaq spoke to me, too,” I told her. “Gave me a different perspective on the situation.”

“What was that?” she asked. 

“That maybe I’d neglected to consider your own exposure to violence, and how that might have affected your response.”

She snorted. “I don’t think that’s relevant here. What’s relevant is that I behaved terribly to you. There’s no excuse.”

“Maybe not an excuse,” I said. “What happened, happened. But there’s an explanation in part for how you responded. Conditioning on all levels — race, privilege, for sure, with you wanting to go to the police immediately. But also your fear of violence — that was a personal experience, with devastating consequences for you.”

“I thought I’d worked this out in therapy but that is clearly not the case,” she said. 

I snorted. “I don’t know that you can ever overcome that kind of trauma,” I said. “It goes too deep, it becomes embedded in your body.” I thought of a few of my patients, was reminded of all the research by van der Kolk. “The body keeps the score.”

“Yes, but my reaction to you was less than helpful.”

“True,” I said bluntly. “Less than helpful may even be an understatement. But now what?”

“Now what?” She sounded puzzled.

“I am assuming you want to move on from this, somehow.”

She sighed. “I don't want to move on. I don’t know if we can move on. Move through, perhaps.”

“I like that better,” I admitted, starting to warm to her again. “Move _through_.”

“There’s something else I want to talk about too,” she said. “But I don’t mean that I want this conversation to be over. It can’t be over. It’s just – I haven’t been exactly forthright with you. And I want you to know where I stand—where I stood, before…” She trailed off. “Before you decide if it’s worth trying to move through this. Together, I mean.”

She cradled her whiskey in both hands. I heard the beginnings of rain, a soft pitter-patter against the glass of windows, and she paused to listen. She looked so small next to me on the sofa, small and alone with the distance between us.

“I want to talk about us, Chakotay,” she said suddenly, looking away from me. I nodded at her to begin again. “I have to admit,” she said, “that when we first started working together and I sensed the attraction between us, all I thought about was a pleasant diversion, a rebound—if I dare say that ugly word—to make my time in Arizona go by a little faster. You do know that I only signed a contract for a year?” I shook my head. “This was supposed to be a break for me, a sort of sabbatical for me to take stock of where I was in my life and where I wanted to go next. I had no thought of staying any longer, at first.”

The rain grew stronger and I quelled the urge to get up and close the kitchen window. I needed to hear what else she had to say. “What made you stay, then? After we broke up—” I asked.

“Was that what we were doing then? Breaking up? That would presume we had actually talked about what our relationship was in the first place. Which, as you know, we never really did. I never let you bring it up with me.” She took a sip of her whiskey and glanced at me. “Stop thinking so hard, Chakotay. I know you’re dying to speak and I’ll let you have your turn, but this has been on my mind and I need to say it before I lose my courage.” I sat and waited.

“Far from it be for me to get between Kathryn Janeway and a challenge,” I said at last, when it appeared she needed a little prompting. She glared at me and crossed her arms in front of her chest before she continued.

“I never dreamed our relationship would go as far as it did, Chakotay. If I’d had any idea, I would have done things differently from the start.”

“I’m confused,” I said, interrupting her. “You’ll have to speak more plainly.”

“You want me to be frank?” She stood and began to pace around the room. I noticed the firm set of her shoulders, the roundness of her breasts over her small waist and hips, accentuated by the black she wore. “All right, I’ll tell you. Here I was thinking you were going to be a friend with benefits and then I found myself feeling more for you, and I didn’t know how to tell you, how to take a step back.”

“Why would you need to take a step back?” I asked her, still puzzled.

“Because of all the things we should have talked about, all the things I would have shared with you if I had known…” A flash of lightning outside and then, delayed, the distant rumble of thunder.

“Known what?”

She stopped pacing and stood at the large window, watching the rain hit against the glass. Over her shoulder she turned her head and caught my eye. “That I was going to fall in love with you,” she said in a ragged voice, and I knew what it had cost her to say that when I still kept my expressions hidden from her, my face a smooth mask.

“When did you know?” I asked her. I was interrupting the flow of her narrative but I didn’t care. I wanted to know. The air was heavy all around us. I waited.

“That I was in love with you?” She hugged her arms more tightly around her chest and walked towards me, stopping at the end of the sofa and looking down at me. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her gaze, but she looked away first. “It happened so gradually I didn’t notice at first. You were fun to work with and flirt with, and I found myself looking forward to every moment I spent with you, whether at the clinic or just the two of us. And then we had this great sex, and still I didn’t think more about it. But then that day at the snow bowl, when we ran into your family…” She trailed off.

“You were upset that I didn’t introduce you as my girlfriend,” I finished for her.

“Yes, but that wasn’t all.” She sat down next to me, turned towards me on the couch, but still we didn’t touch and she looked away from me.

“That wasn’t all,” I repeated, remembering the sex we’d had that day.

She shook her head. “You made love to me as if you loved me,” she said softly. “And you don’t know how much that scared me.”

Now I reached out and took her hand, running my finger gently over her open palm. “Why did that scare you, Kathryn?”

“Because I was in a lot deeper than I had thought I was. And I hadn’t gone about it well at all. And because, well, you’ve probably guessed it – I have a hard time getting close to others.”

“I have to disagree about you not going about it well, at least not about this part,” I said, catching her gaze. She did look a bit frightened and I tried to make her feel more at ease. “As far as I’m concerned, we were taking our time, getting to know each other. It makes a lot of sense to me that you wouldn’t know right away how you felt about me.” There was a light-tipsy moth flying about the room and I was momentarily distracted by its flight.

She shook her head and pulled her hand back. My fingers felt cool and empty without hers. “Maybe that’s how you see it, Chakotay. But I know I wasn’t being very candid with you. That there might have even been an element of using you. Which is why I decided to take a risk and come here today when I don’t even know how you feel about me now, especially now.”

“You seriously don’t know how I feel about you?” I asked, smiling at last despite myself.

“I’ve read your texts over and over again,” she said with frustration. “And I still couldn’t figure it out, couldn’t tell if you were writing me to be polite or – or –”

“Out of something more? Yes,” I assured her. “I wasn’t just writing you to be polite.”

“Then you…?”

“I do,” I said, taking her hand in mine, leaving the rest unsaid for now. I returned to the topic she raised earlier: “Kathryn, we can talk all night about whether or not you should have been more forthcoming to me. But in the meanwhile, would you it make you feel better if you told me about what you’ve been holding back?”

She laughed but did not pull away. “No criminal history, if that’s what you were wondering,” she started. “Nothing urgent. And yes, it probably would make me feel better to talk about it. Just—I feel like I’ve let you see so little of myself. You don’t even know why I left Mark, or what my relationship with my mother is like, or how my father died.” I moved suddenly, about to tell her I did know how her father died, but then recalled I probably wasn’t supposed to know that, and held back. But she noticed me startle, and continued: “Or maybe you _do_ know about my father’s death. Tuvaq told me he met you by accident in Denver but he wouldn’t say much about it. No, don’t answer—suffice it to say that I watched my father get gunned down in front of me in a shantytown in Rio de Janeiro.” Her voice rose and she sounded desperate, younger. “Seems like an important oversight, don’t you think?”

“You said you’d had no intention of being in a serious relationship with me,” I pointed out. “I think you’re being too hard on yourself.” I squeezed her hand.

“Am I?” She asked.

“Besides which, it’s not too late, is it? Not too late for me to ask you about those things? And others too? Not too late for us to talk? Like we’ve been doing tonight?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know if it’s too late, Chakotay. What I do know is that I’ve had a long time to think about this and I know I want to try again. And I want to do it right this time.”

“Still so hard on yourself,” I said. I winked at her.

“At least, do it differently this time around,” she clarified. The rain sounded louder on the roof, and she looked up suddenly at the ceiling, then closed her eyes, listening to the rain.

“OK,” I said. “But I think there are some things I could stand to do differently too.” She leaned against me, nestling into my shoulder. Her gesture was gentle and companionable, the erotic turned into comfort. I ran my fingers through her soft hair, then kissed the nape of her neck. She hummed something in response. “You don’t have the monopoly on regrets in this relationship,” I told her.

“What do you regret, Chakotay?”

“I regret not trusting you to understand about my history, for one. I regret pigeonholing you as some White do-gooder—”

“I may very well fit that description,” she said with a smile. “Guilty as charged.”

“Well, even so, I shouldn’t have assumed that’s all you were. Assumed your life had been easy just because of your background.”

“None of us are immune from suffering,” she agreed. “But my life has been pretty easy, all things considered.”

“And so has mine, if I’m honest,” I said. “And I’ve been extraordinarily privileged in it, as well.”

“How so?” she asked. I kissed the top of her head.

“I don’t know many people who come from such a loving family, such a loving community. And I’ve had an excellent education, and a really satisfying career that gives me enough money and a beautiful place to live. No, I can’t complain about a lot, personally.”

“Would that we all were so lucky,” she said thoughtfully. “But, what about your mother’s death when you were in college? What about race-related trauma?” I was surprised she knew the term for it, but decided to leave that discussion for another day.

“My mother’s death was hard, of course it was. But it wasn’t traumatic—we knew she was sick—and I always had a good relationship with her, so it wasn’t complicated grief or anything like that.” Was I telling her much? Not enough? I still couldn’t gauge with her what level of vulnerability was expected or desired. “But anyway, I was saying: I didn’t trust you to get to know me, either. It seemed like you weren’t looking for anything serious, so I figured you saw me as a novelty, as this Native guy you’d be able to brag about dating one day.”

“ _That’s_ what you thought of me?” she asked sharply. “Jesus, Chakotay. I may not have thought I wanted a serious relationship, but I never wanted to date you for the novelty.”

“Good thing we are talking about this now,” I said.

She sat up and looked at me sternly. “Do I really want to know the rest? Or is this a case where bygones had better be bygones?”

I laughed wryly. “It doesn’t really get any worse that this,” I admitted. “But I was hurt, really hurt that you didn’t seem to care as much as I did. It made me feel at a disadvantage and, well, let’s just say I don’t much care being at a disadvantage with anyone. Brings up old feelings of resentment, feelings that probably have more to do with my ancestors and yours than with you personally. The same feelings that pushed my father to get his degrees and me to get mine; the old chip on the shoulder—”

“I can imagine,” she said. “And I don’t particularly like being at a disadvantage, either.”

“—As if I weren’t good enough,” I went on.

She interrupted me. “As if you weren’t _good_ enough?” she asked with disbelief. “Chakotay—it’s not that. Not that at all. I would have thought you’d have known you were rather _too_ good.”

I think I may have blushed. “Laying out all your cards, now are you?”

“I may have a few still up my sleeve,” she said with a wink. “But this is as good a place as any to start.”

“Truce?” I asked.

“Truce?” She laughed. “I would have thought _rapprochement,_ if we are going to get all diplomatic about it _._ ” I thought about geeking out and telling her that rapprochement was a psychoanalytic term, but thought better of it. Instead I gazed back at her, struck again by the piquant beauty of her face.

I was still angry about Sedona and wasn’t sure if I’d ever truly forgive her for that. But I had to balance my anger with the joy I felt at her being here with me again, at her willingness to ask for forgiveness, and with what appeared to have been some serious consideration of her own part in making our relationship flounder the first time. Despite myself, despite how much I wanted to nurse my self-righteous anger, I had to admit that I had also missed Kathryn terribly these last months. How strange that was to me – to feel both love and anger for someone in equal measure – for my anger to be all the stronger because of the depth of the love, the hope for something better from her, from us.

“Kathryn, may I kiss you?” I asked. I didn’t want to think any more, I didn’t want more words from either of us. I wanted to feel her again and see if in her touch I would discover again, as we always had done before, a surer form of connection.

As an answer she moved closer to me and tilted her head up. I took her chin in my hand, moved her face slowly from side to side as I looked at the perfect line of her cheeks and imagined what she would look like when she next smiled at me. Kathryn closed her eyes and I watched her breath quicken.

I kissed her then, my lips soft and gentle on hers until she opened her mouth and suddenly her tongue was on mine and I couldn’t be gentle anymore, not with her hands in my hair and her chest pressed against me. Then Kathryn pulled her legs up under her and was kneeling over me on the sofa, her hips spread wide around mine as we continued to kiss. I caressed her face and she nuzzled my hand then let her head fall back, exposing her neck to my kisses. She had on that perfume she always wore, that scent of green mangos and water and darkness, and I was brought back suddenly to that first night with her, when I was still amazed at my luck and still caught up in the excitement of flirtation and seduction and novelty, when we still scarcely knew each other.

The memory caused me to pull back from her. I gently lifted Kathryn away from me and helped her to sit back next to me on the couch. My hand stayed at her neck where I touched her collarbone, then her shoulder, reluctant to entirely lose contact with her again after so many months apart.

She spoke first, pulling away. “Chakotay – the rain is letting up. I should head home now, before it gets any worse.”

“The forecast said mild rains this evening,” I protested, hoping she’d stay longer but also not sure what that would mean if she did. I remembered my dream of her swollen belly, the two of us standing together in the water as the glittering fish swam around us.

She leaned forward and kissed me again, then rose. “I really should be going,” she said meaningfully.

“May I see you this weekend?” I asked. She shook her head.

“I need to unpack again, get both houses back in order. Let’s wait for sometime next week?”

It was enough that she had come straight to me; I could wait a few more days to see Kathryn again.

I led her to the door, lent her an old umbrella from my closet, and held it for her as I walked her out to her truck. She put her hand on my chest and rose to her tiptoes to kiss me again, a gentle kiss on my mouth. The drive smelled of damp earth and sweet grass. I was happy.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to devovere for the beta -- this section was much improved by her edits.
> 
> I also made some changes to the last chapter since I originally posted it, if you are so inclined to go back and re-read.
> 
> ~Emma

If times had been different – if so much had been different in our lives – we might now have started the slow and pleasant work of trusting each other again.

Instead, we were in the last long weeks before the election, and every day the news had some outrage to disclose, some tirade to chill my heart. Although I imagined Kathryn was as troubled as I was by the national scene, I couldn’t bring myself to talk to her about it yet, still finding it difficult to trust her with anything so charged as the state of our country. The combative speeches on the radio, the fervent nativist editorials in the local newspaper, and the yard signs of my Republican neighbors in Flagstaff did nothing to quell my unease. I feared we were looking at the future assumption of the throne by a power-crazed, maniacal narcissist -- my clinical opinion, of course -- and despite how very public this process was, I wanted to keep my own reactions to those I knew would understand them.

The following Monday was the first of the presidential debates on television, which I watched with Sekaya and Leslie at their home. It made the hairs rise on my arm every time I heard that man speak –  _ lies, all lies,  _ I couldn't help but think – and I ended up leaving the den to pace outside halfway through the debate, I was so agitated watching it. Belanna may have texted me during it, or I texted her, I don’t remember which, but then we were texting back and forth for a while until I couldn’t stand that either because the man on the television was so arrogant, so demeaning to the woman he spoke to and to his audience, that I asked Sekaya if we could turn off the set. But she wanted to keep watching it until the miserable end, so I thanked my sister and drove home, my pulse racing and sweat forming at my temples.

I pulled over a little way outside of Second Mesa to get out of the truck and look up at the stars. It was especially clear that night, clear and dry, the Milky Way so radiant that it was as if I were looking down on the galaxy and falling into the stars rather than standing beneath them.  _ What is Kathryn doing that night? _ I wondered, but resisted the urge to text her to ask if she had watched the debate.

I didn’t see Kathryn again for another couple weeks. She decided to return to Indiana for a procedure her mother needed, and she didn’t even have time to say goodbye in person, instead taking the next flight out of Phoenix on Wednesday afternoon. Belanna was beside herself over the weekend trying to convince Dr. Zimmerman to come back up and help us, even got in touch with IHS and strong-armed them into offering him a three-month contract to sweeten the deal for him. I wondered if Kathryn knew the lengths to which her colleagues had gone to cover for her and keep her at the clinic.

Regardless, I texted Kathryn the news that Dr. Zimmerman was coming, and she said she was grateful for the help. I wished her mother well and waited for her to return, wondering if this time would be the last time, if there was enough to draw her back to Arizona with her mother so ill and far away. We had not had time to talk any more about what we were to each other, and other than that kiss before she left my house had made no assurances that we would keep seeing each other. I wondered now if she might have been saying goodbye to me that night, clearing the air and assuaging her guilt before packing up and leaving Second Mesa for good.

The second debate I also watched with Sekaya and Leslie, and the night struck us all with increasing pessimism and despair. The man was a good enough speaker; you had to give him credit for his serpent’s tongue. It was easy to see why he appealed to the masses – he hit at the core of America’s bleeding heartland, with his superficial patriotism, his promise to restore the American dream, to bring us back to some imagined golden days when White was Right and women knew their place. It is no exaggeration to say that he terrified me. I began fantasizing about the First Nations groups I knew in Canada, considered my Yucateca friends, looked around for an exit strategy.

That night I couldn’t stay asleep; I woke every few hours, restless and agitated, my heart pounding. When at last I fell asleep shortly before dawn, I had a vivid dream.

In the dream my father and I were walking through Canyon de Chelly but the riverbed was dry, the mud cracked and parched. The skeletons of dead fish littered the banks of the empty river, and I could smell their fetid stench. The river grasses were brittle yellow, and no birds sang. It was an empty, desolate place.

I turned to my father. I had not dreamed about him since his death. “ _ ‘Ina _ ,” I said to him in Hopi, although I have not spoken the language fluently since childhood. “Tell me what to do.”

He stared hard at me. “Do you imagine that you alone can bring back the rain?” he asked. I shook my head. “There is nothing to do but to wait,” he said. 

“How long must we wait?” I asked.

“Until the rain comes,” he said, still in Hopi. Then he added, in English: “And you must be ready for it.” 

I found this a highly unsatisfying answer. We walked some steps further, pacing each other, and then my father turned off into a side canyon. I recognized it as the place where I had made love with Kathryn. The grasses there were tall and green, and water still gurgled from its spring. A small lizard watched me from a rock.

My father turned around to look at me one last time. “You must be ready for the rain,” he repeated in English, then nodded. I felt a deep and abiding sense of love radiate from him: the pure and selfless love that my father had never been able to give, the love that demands no return.

“ _ ‘Ina _ ,” I began, taking a step towards him, reaching for him. “ _ Na, Na.”  _ But he was gone, and the dream was over.

__________

I emerged slowly from sleep that time, feeling the delicious heaviness of repose in my limbs. Although it was impossible that I had slept enough that night with my frequent awakenings, I felt well-rested, energetic even, warmed by the love I had felt from him. I had dreamed of him,  _ Na, Na, ‘Ina,  _ my father.

My father. What with the discord with Kathryn, what with my travel this summer and my work, I had let the anniversary of his death pass by without much consideration. Now he was appearing to me in my dreams, a sure sign that there was unattended business for me to face.

I wondered if the dream was a premonition, the old harbinger-of-evil type of dream, a common enough form for dreams to take, especially when someone was as high-strung as I was in the current climate. But if that was the case, then there was also some hopefulness in the dream, both in his love and in my father telling me to prepare for the day the rains came. Were the rains a deluge, then, or a welcome reprieve from drought? How could I prepare for the disaster that I feared was to come?

The shower water almost scalded me when I got in, but I felt the urge to wash away the night and the dream, which initially had been comforting but was now making me uneasy, wondering what was to come.

I had not spoken much to Kathryn since she had returned. It was a Thursday; I sent her a text and suggested we meet the following night for dinner. This time, she said, she preferred to invite me to her place, meaning the condo she was renting near Flagstaff.

She opened the courtyard door to let me in, oven mitts in hand and apron over her clothes, and immediately apologized to me. “I’ve burned the lamb,” she said almost too brightly, throwing her hands up. “I really am hopeless in the kitchen.”

She appeared anxious, and I hastened to reassure her. “Don’t worry about it, we can get take-out. Or we can whip up some pasta.” Then I asked myself why I was being so careful, so accommodating: she was a grown woman, after all.

She pouted unnecessarily. “I wanted to cook for you.” I thought her tone was off, a bit too coquettish for where we currently stood, and I looked at her sharply.

“I didn’t come over for the food, Kathryn,” I retorted. “Now, show me what else you have in your kitchen.”

Despite our conversation when she first got back from Indiana, I was nervous to be with Kathryn again. I didn’t even know if it was wise for me to be there. The news was making me so angry that I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t take it out on her.

She stepped aside to let me through the courtyard. I’d been to her rental a few times before, when we were dating the first time, and we had both agreed it was a pity it wasn’t hers because it was such a nice place. The house had stucco walls and terracotta tiles on the roof, a modern take on the Spanish  _ casona _ . What I liked most about it was how the entry opened into an inner courtyard lined in red Saltillo tiles and overlooked by windows and French doors from the house on three sides. It was the typical Spanish-style house, closed to the outside but open in the middle, ample and light-filled on the inside. There were two smaller patios in the back, one that led off the kitchen and one off the den, and upstairs off the master bedroom was a terrace over the garage, another private space.

Kathryn opened the second door for me, and I bent to take my shoes off before coming inside. She had disappeared around the corner into the kitchen, and I looked around for a few seconds before joining her. In the last six months she had filled the foyer with houseplants, some of which had grown to a prodigious height under the skylights.

“Your plants look great,” I said, coming into the kitchen. “Who looked after them when you were gone?”

“I had a housesitter. I may not be able to cook but I’ve always prided myself on keeping plants alive,” she said. “Though nothing compared to your green thumb.”

“Shoot!” I said. “I forgot the tepary beans in the car!” I had brought some from my garden for her pantry. “Give me a second and I’ll get them.” I left and went to get the bag of beans, then let myself back into the house.

“Oh, thank you, Chakotay,” Kathryn said when I rejoined her in the kitchen. She took the plastic bag from me and smiled up at me, her face joyful. “You don’t think we could make these tonight, do you? Oh, wait, they’re dried, so we’d have to soak them and it’d take too long.”

“It won’t take long at all,” I said. “They are still pretty fresh, just picked a month ago. Come on, let’s get some water boiling. Do you have two pots? One for pasta and one for the beans. What vegetables do you have?”

“Some tomatoes and carrots, onions and potatoes of course, maybe some celery?” Kathryn washed her hands at the sink and then wiped them on her apron. Her hair was pinned up and a few stray pieces framed her face. She was so lovely, and I wanted her, but I didn’t know how to get close to her again. 

Gone was the ease I had begun to feel again in her presence that night she had visited me at my Second Mesa home, when she first returned to Arizona. Was it just the fact that she had left again and come back and we had never truly regained our footing with so many stops or starts? Or was it, as I suspected but almost didn’t want to articulate to myself, also the larger context at play here, my own anxieties about the election, that caused me to hesitate around her? In any case, I was searching for a way back to her and had not found it yet. I was reminded of Magda’s common advice to me early on in my training, when I faced a difficult patient or clinical situation: to slow things down, to focus on the moment.

“I think we can make a vegetarian Bolognese with what you have,” I told her. “How many tomatoes have you got here? I’m sorry I didn’t bring any, I have plenty.”

“Well, I was supposed to cook for you,” she pointed out.

“It’s better this way,” I responded. I began to scrounge in her fridge for the vegetables, then focused my attention on washing and cutting them. Kathryn offered to help, so I got her chopping the garlic and onions, which always make me run tears in an absurd fashion. She finished before I did, then brought out some cheese and fruit to nibble on, leaning on the countertop to watch me. 

We both eased up somewhat as we were working, and we covered all the usual neutral ground – clinic, patients, Kathryn’s mother’s health – by the time the beans and pasta were ready. Kathryn served us at the kitchen patio, at a small table underneath a palo verde tree. It was pleasant out there, letting the dusk descend upon us, listening to the lull of the night insects. 

Kathryn got up to light a candle; I was struck again by how young she looked in the candlelight. I wanted to reach for her, to bridge the gap that had developed between us with the physical touch that had always served us so well. But I didn’t want to let us blunder into something a second time without defining it. This time I was the one who wanted parameters. 

“Just so I’m clear, Kathryn – what  _ are  _ we doing now? What do you want from me?” I asked her when she sat back down at the table.

“I want to get to know you better,” she said, evading the question. “I want us to do things like this –” she waved her hand around, “—more often.”

“Do you want us to date?” I asked, trying to pin her down. I looked at her pointedly.

“Yes,” she said quickly. “Like tonight.”

“Is this a date then?” 

She blushed and looked away. “You know it is, even if my effort to cook for you turned out horrendously.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” I replied. “So you want us to date.” I paused. “How is that different from what we were doing before?”

She gave me that rigid stare she sometimes gives Paris or Kim, when they aren’t paying attention to what she is saying.  

“Chakotay,” she answered. “We were having sex every weekend and we never talked about it. Never talked about why we had that kind of connection, or what it meant to both of us.” I started to speak, and she held up her hand for me to wait. “Now, before you make some excuse for me, let me take full responsibility for that.  _ I  _ was the one who didn’t want to put a name to us, the one who was too scared to admit how I felt. You were on the verge of doing so – but I always put a stop to it.”

“You must have been very powerful,” I said, smirking at her. “To control my reactions so thoroughly.” 

She swatted at my arm playfully. “Don’t make fun of me!” she protested. And then, “You’re such a therapist. I’ve heard that line before.”

“Guilty as charged. But I’m totally serious, Kathryn. I could have said something too, after all.” A moth flitted by, attracted to the flame.

“Then why didn’t you?” she asked, and she was as serious as I’d ever seen her.

I sighed and cracked my knuckles, trying to decide how to answer. “I was too proud to,” I said at last. “If you weren’t going to care that way about me, I wasn’t going to either. I’d give you tit for tat, no more.”

“Except in bed,” she said. “You couldn’t hide it there.”

“What can I say?” I spread my hands out wide. I wanted to tell her how much I like sex, in general, and how much I liked sex with her, in particular, but I didn’t want to sound crass.

“Chakotay,” she said softly. “This may sound strange – I’m perfectly aware of what kind of lover you are, and how well we go together in that way – but I think we should take things slowly this time. I want us to have some time to just date, to get to know each other better. The sex can wait.” She laughed nervously. “Who are we kidding? We know the sex was always good. We need to find out if the rest can be good, too.”

I reached across the table and took her hand in mine. “At the end of the evening, I will go back home,” I reassured her. “And every evening, for as long as you need me to.”

“I don’t know how long that will be, Chakotay,” she said with a smile. “But for now – can you give me this?”

I pulled back. “Of course, Kathryn. I’m not some teenager. I can handle myself without it. Anything else?”

“You really couldn't be more accommodating, could you?” she asked.

Now I laughed and shook my head. “I’m not accommodating you, Kathryn. I would have put the same parameters on us this time around. It’s incredible to be here with you again, talking like this, but I’m under no illusions. Nothing about our relationship has been easy. I’m not accommodating you.”

“Good,” she said. “I don’t need a pushover. I need you to be honest with me. I need you to call me out but also to listen to me. I need you to back me up but then challenge me to be even better. I need –”

I leaned over and kissed her. Her mouth was open, caught in half-spoken words, and she tasted like the rosé we had opened earlier. She reached to cup my face in her hands, and suddenly she was the one leading the kiss, her tongue sliding past my lips. Kathryn pulled back long enough to rise from her chair, and then she was sitting on my lap, her hands behind my neck, kissing me so passionately and thoroughly I thought I might lose my breath.

“I need this too,” she said breathlessly.

“I thought you might,” I said, and I noticed my own breath was tight. “But I thought I wasn’t supposed to spend the night,” I whispered as I pulled back from her.

“You aren’t,” she said between kisses. “Doesn’t mean I can’t want it anyway.” Her hands were in my hair, caressing me, stroking me. She kissed my mouth, my chin, my nose, and then each eyelid before returning to my mouth.

“Are you always such a tease?” I asked.

She laughed a sultry laugh. My hands went to her waist, skimmed up her ribs, but I stopped before I reached her breasts. Her breath hitched and she put her hands over mine.

“Shhh,” I said, kissing her again. “I won’t touch you there or anywhere you don’t want me to.”

“God, Chakotay,” she said, letting her head fall back so her smooth neck was exposed. “I’ve missed you so much,” she said, her voice trembling. I kissed her behind her ear, along her jawline, underneath her chin before coming up again to catch her mouth in mine.

“I want you to want me,” I said boldly. “And I want us to take as long as it takes, even though I know it will be difficult to wait. But I want us to wait.” I kissed her and then drew her lower lip into my mouth. She began to pant and shake against me, and I released her, kissing her temple.

Kathryn was warm and pliant against me, her arms around my neck, her breath on mine. I slowly pulled back, took one of her hands, and opened her palm, kissing it.

She spoke first. “This is when I ask you to leave,” she said.

“Of course,” I responded. “But don’t you want me to help you clean up?”

She shook her head. “There’s not much left to do.”

“I insist,” I said. “Come on, I’ll go home before bedtime. Just let me stay and help.” I winked at her then stacked the plates and cutlery on top of each other. She took them from me and headed back into the kitchen.

Kathryn had a dishwasher but, she said, preferred to not use it because it took her so long by herself to use enough dishes to run a load. So I washed the dishes at the sink, and she dried them and put them away.

“Have you been watching the debates, Chakotay?” she asked me suddenly.

“Yes,” I responded warily. “And you?”

“Yes,” she said. “Though they make me so angry I end up throwing something and I’ve already broken two coffee mugs since they started.” That made me laugh, we were both laughing. 

“You’ve got to find another hobby,” I joked, relieved that I could joke about it.

“Don’t worry, it’ll soon be over,” she said. “Just one more debate.”  _ Did she really believe it would be over so soon?   _

“One more debate, and then four more years,” I said solemnly, rinsing a plate. 

She took the plate from me and ran a towel over it. “There’s an election first, Chakotay. People may like how he sounds on TV, he’s provocative and he knows how to get their attention, but at the end of the day they still are going to have to go out and vote.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said. All that stood between us and a tyrant was the American people. Now I felt the desire to break something, but it wasn’t my kitchen. “Where does your silverware go?” I asked, changing the subject. She showed me the silverware drawer, and I set to tidying it for her. I wiped down the counters with the towel, and then there wasn’t much else to do.

“Stay for a nightcap?” she asked, turning towards me. Now she was the one who was having trouble saying goodbye.

I shook my head. “I don’t like to drink and drive,” I said, rather more primly than I had intended. 

“Very responsible of you,” she said. Was there an edge to her voice?

“Besides, I should get going,” I said. “If you gave me anything more to drink, I’d probably fall asleep on your couch.”

Kathryn nodded. “Thanks for coming, Chakotay,” she said, the edge gone. She walked me to the hallway and handed me my coat.

I walked into her courtyard and she shut the inner door behind us, following me out there. I bent to kiss her cheek, then stepped back slightly to look at her. She closed the distance between us, standing on her tiptoes to cup my face in her hands. She kissed my lips tenderly at first, then with increasing passion and eagerness until her mouth opened and her tongue was on mine. Her hands were on my hair, then racing down my neck, my shoulders and down my forearms, coming under my arms and wrapping around my sides and up my back, pulling me closer to her. We kept kissing there in the darkness that smelled of wet clay and  _ palo santo  _ and eucalyptus berries.

It took me a long time to walk away.

  
  
  
  
  



	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is now a companion piece to this story! [What Endures](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15769437) is the fic that my lovely beta, [devovere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/devovere/pseuds/devovere), has written as an out-take to an earlier chapter, creating a scene in which Sekaya confronts Kathryn about her actions in Sedona. In case you were wondering just what other repercussions there were from the Sedona incident, this is the part that Chakotay can't tell (but devovere did a marvelous job of it).

I couldn’t bear to watch the final debate, and told Sekaya so.

As the last few weeks slid into the election, my patients came to me with increasing distress: the Mexicans and Indians I worked with at Second Mesa, the young White women and gay men I saw in my private practice in Flagstaff. They all came with their own particular neuroses, magnified tenfold. The victims of rape were appalled and terrified by the candidate’s bragging that he had assaulted women in the past; the Mexicans, whether documented or not, feared the consequences of a border wall; the Hopi and Navajo at Second Mesa mused on what nativism really meant if we were the original inhabitants of this continent; and the young gay folks started calculating which states were better than Arizona to live in if the right to same-sex marriage were revoked. I consulted with some of my psychologist friends in the area, and we were all hearing the same things, the same reports of insomnia, _nervios_ , nightmares; our patients’ symptoms were the proverbial canary in the coal mine.

In primary care, Janeway and Belanna were dealing with more psychosomatic symptoms than usual, and at our staff meeting the Friday before the election I ventured to bring up the likely connection between the political situation and our patients’ presenting complaints. “We’re all tense,” I pointed out, when Janeway commented on the unusual number of panic attacks. “No one knows what to expect after Tuesday.”

The room grew silent. Belanna spoke first. “I wish Bernie was still running,” she said mournfully. Several people groaned. “I know, I know, he couldn't get the nomination. But still.”

“I know everyone’s more on edge than usual,” Janeway said. “I’m feeling it too. But we can’t fix the political situation. We just have to do what we’ve always done: provide the best care to our patients. Including those who don’t share our political views.”

“I don’t think anyone doubts that we are doing that already,” I said with as much calm as I could muster. I don’t know what I expected from her: a speech? I wondered what my father would have said at a time like this. He probably would have quoted César Chávez or told us some anecdote from when he last met with Winona LaDuke, calmed our nerves with metaphor and story. I could have done the same, it was certainly within my repertoire, but I wasn’t the clinic director—Janeway was.

“This is our work,” Janeway said. “What anyone does outside of here is their own business.”

She was trying to retain a semblance of political neutrality, but I was tired of the pretence. And I knew that she had spent every evening this week and last canvassing around Flagstaff, so she was one to talk about just focusing on the work.

“Look,” I said to her. “You don’t have to beat around the bush. No one in this room is going to vote Republican this year.”

“Yeah,” Tom chimed in. “I mean, I consider myself a Libertarian but I’m still voting for Hillary.”

“He is _not_ a Libertarian,” Belanna said sharply. “He’s just kidding, everyone.”

Janeway looked disconcerted, but I continued on, ignoring Tom and Belanna. “What I mean is: yes, our work is here in the clinic. But we are _seeing our patients in distress_ as a result of this election. We can’t just ignore the larger context here.”

“I’m not ignoring it,” she said, and suddenly I knew she was talking to me, directly, and to hell with the other people in the room. “None of us can ignore it,” she said. “But I need all of you here with me, right now. Our patients rely on us to be here no matter the circumstances. And no matter what happens on Tuesday, some of our patients will be angry and some won’t. Some will be relieved, others might be devastated. Some will want to talk about it, others won’t. But we have to care for all of them. Let’s not lose sight of that.” Kathryn tapped her fingers on the table, and I noticed that she had moved her ring from her right hand to the smallest finger on her left hand. Her jaw was tight, as if there was something else she wanted to say but was holding back, and it occurred to me that I might have been the source of her displeasure.

Yet she had a point, I had to admit. Our Flagstaff clinic saw its fair share of conservative folks, and we had to care for those people just as well as our other patients. And while part of me wanted to keep arguing with her-- _Over what?_ I asked myself, for fundamentally we agreed on the most important issues--the look in her eye suggested she wouldn’t broker further discussion on the topic in staff meeting.

Afterwards, she asked to see me in her office.

Pouring herself a cup of coffee, Janeway signalled for me to sit in the chair opposite her desk.

“You’re angry,” she observed once I was sitting down.

“Yes,” I said.

“At me?” she asked, and she looked tired.

“I’m not sure what I’m feeling towards you right now,” I said. She handed me a box of assorted teas and turned on her electric kettle at the same time.

“What are you angry about, then?” she asked, and her gentleness disarmed me.

“I am angry at the situation,” I said. “Angry that the country might elect that guy into office. And I’m scared. I’m scared for our patients, and myself. I’m scared for my family and my community if that happens.” I sighed. “I feel like we work so hard, and we get nowhere. I’m discouraged, and I’m tired. The only good thing in all this is that my father isn’t here to see it.”

She nodded. “Honestly, the only way I’m getting through this is by pounding the pavement. Gives me something to do so I don’t feel quite so helpless.”

“You feel helpless?” I asked, my sympathy returning.

Kathryn nodded again. “I know it’s unlikely to change anyone’s mind at the last minute, but at least it makes me feel like I’m doing something.” She took a sip of her coffee and looked at me over the rim.

“So you don’t really believe what you just said in there, do you?” I asked, gesturing back to her door. “That we should just focus on our work at the clinic?”

She exhaled sharply. “I believe in focusing on work while I’m at work,” she said. “That can get us through a lot right there.” She paused. “I’ve learned the hard way that not all my colleagues share my political views.” The electric kettle was boiling; I leaned over and turned it off.

“That’s true even in my field,” I acknowledged, pouring water over the tea bag.

“It’s a flawed assumption that all healers have compassionate political views,” she said. “For all I know, Tom _is_ a Libertarian. Dr. Zimmerman could be anything, as far as we know. But we need all of them here with us next week, and the following week.” She laughed. I felt calmer, having had an explanation from her.

The smell of mint and licorice filled the air. She leaned back in her chair, more relaxed now, and put one knee up against her desk. “I know for a fact that neither Tom nor Dr. Zimmerman are going to disagree with your politics,” I said.

“But _you_ might,” she answered back, not entirely in jest.

I laughed. “Yes, I might. But not over the essentials.” I paused, considering. “I shouldn’t have questioned you in public.” I took a sip of the tea and put the cup down again; it was still too hot to drink.

“Oh, come now! I can take a little disagreement from time to time,” she said, winking at me. “It does me good.”

I felt a rush of affection towards her: for this conversation, for her warmth, for the opportunity to talk things through with her instead of rushing headlong to conclusions as I was wont to do. I wanted to stay and linger with her over my tea; I wanted to pick her brain about the first patient I had seen that morning; I wanted to take her out to lunch and ask her to skip the canvassing tonight, to come home with me instead and let me cook for her, listen to some Django, maybe dance together. Forget all that was happening in the world for a change.

As if anyone could forget.

I stood to go. My next patient would be arriving soon, and I had to review my notes first. Kathryn handed me my tea, and I stroked her fingers as I took the mug from her.

“Remind me to take you out to dinner when all of this is over,” I said to her by way of good-bye.

* * *

 

Kathryn told me she was planning to spend the weekend before the election hitting the pavement, going door to door in Flagstaff trying to get Dems to get out and vote. Coconino County, where Flagstaff was located, would likely vote democrat, as would the people on Reservation land. We might be able to count on the area around Tucson and Tempe, but I had no illusions that our state would go blue. I imagined the kinds of response Kathryn would get as she canvassed, and I knew there was no way in hell I’d put myself through that kind of situation at my age, with my color skin. But I respected her for the effort, knowing it couldn’t have been easy to have doors slammed in her face and to be subjected to the kind of vitriol that always came from these last-minute attempts to sway recalcitrant voters.

Kathryn looked exhausted on Monday when she got in to work. I followed her back to her office and asked her if we could talk.

“Of course, come in, Chakotay,” she said, indicating the seat across from her desk. I shut the door behind me.

“You look terrible,” I said bluntly. “When was the last time you ate a decent meal?”

She rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe last week?”

“Are you sleeping well?”

She shook her head. “I can’t sleep. I caved and took an Ambien last night, but it only keeps me asleep about five hours.”

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” I said. And then, “You’re not responsible for the outcome of this election, you know that.”

She laughed ruefully. “I do know that, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I just sat by and didn’t do anything. There’s too much at stake here, and I don’t understand why people just don’t _see..._.” She trailed off, wringing her hands. I wanted to take her hands in mine, stop her from twisting them in that way, but I had told myself that we’d act professionally at the office.

“Kathryn, this isn’t a logical race. This isn’t about who’s right here. If that were all it were, then there would be no contest.”

She looked up at me, eyes wide and sad. “Then what is this about, Chakotay?”

“Revenge,” I said. “Revenge and anger. People who can’t stand that we elected a Black president. People who feel left behind while others seem to be overtaking them."

“Enough!” she said. “You’re the psychologist here. What can we _do_ with all that anger?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, tapping my hands on her desk. “All I know is that people are hurting, all kinds of people, and when they are hurting they aren’t likely to be thinking straight.” I paused, considering. “Kathryn, you do realize there’s a very likely chance that he will be voted in tomorrow.” She did know that, didn’t she?

“I don’t want to consider that option,” she said firmly. At last I reached out to touch her hands, threaded her cool fingers between mine to keep them still, and she looked up at me with large, tired eyes.

“Thinking about it won’t make it come true,” I said. “The play’s already in motion. What’s done is done.”

“So what am I supposed to do, then? Just sit back and let it happen?” She pulled her hands away and crossed her arms over her chest, her mouth a pout.

“No,” I began, feeling the anger rise in me. We were still on the same side, weren’t we? “Not sit back.”

“Then what?”

“You’re worn out and irritable, Kathryn.” Not only that, but she looked even thinner than usual, her usual glow replaced with a wan pallor.

“Thanks.”

“I think it’s time to beat a tactical retreat.”

She laughed. Her shoulders were tense and her mouth was grim. I wondered if I was being too hard on her, if it was too presumptuous of me to tell her what to do.

“Kathryn, you need to be in this for the long haul,” I said more gently. “No matter what happens tomorrow.” She uncrossed her arms and I reached out and took her hands in mine again.

“What do you suggest I do?” she asked again.

“I might be overstepping myself here, but I think you should take a break from canvassing. You yourself said that a lot of folks out there just wanted to take their anger out on you. You’re not going to convince them any.” She opened her palms and I noticed her looking down at our hands, my thumbs rubbing the soft skin of her palms. “Think about doing something for yourself, getting some rest tonight,” I said.

“I don't think I can rest until it’s over,” she said. “I can’t keep from reading the news.” I knew very well what she meant; it was hard to stop checking my phone for the news between sessions.

A knock sounded on the door and Belanna burst in.

“Dr. Janeway—” Belanna began, then she noticed our still-joined hands. “Uh, excuse me, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll come back later.”

Kathryn abruptly pulled her hand away from mine. “Give us a few minutes, Belanna,” she said, and Belanna turned around to leave. “I guess we’re not hiding that any longer,” she said to me once Belanna was gone.

I smiled at her and took her hand back in mine. “Why don’t you come to my sister’s place tomorrow night?” I told her. “Watch the election returns with me and Sekaya.”

She looked wary. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said.

“Why’s that?” I imagined she felt overwhelmed by the election and perhaps wanted to watch it alone.

“I wouldn’t be welcome there,” she said. “And honestly, I wouldn’t blame her. No, Chakotay, I appreciate the invitation, but I’ll stay in.”

“Why wouldn’t Sekaya welcome you?” I asked her sharply. “Has she said something to you?” Sekaya had always been a little impetuous, and I knew that she hadn’t been happy when Kathryn had decided to stay in Second Mesa after our argument. Now I feared for what might have passed between the two of them without my knowledge.

“I’d rather not say more right now,” she said, sighing. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “It’s complicated. Let’s wait until the election is over. You go with your family. I had planned to watch it at home, anyway.”

In the end, I didn’t watch the election with Sekaya, either; I felt too annoyed with my sister to want to see her that night.

Instead, I went over to Belanna’s and spent the miserable affair with Tom, Belanna, and the part of Belanna’s extended family that lived near Second Mesa. When I got there Belanna brought me into the kitchen and served me tamales, while Tom helped set up the television in the other room.

“Pork or _rajas_?” she asked, and I took one of each.

“Belanna,” I said. “About earlier…” She looked confused. “In Janeway’s office,” I explained.

Startle turned to comprehension. “What about it, Chakotay?” she asked sharply. Then, “I don’t think I was supposed to see that, so I’ll pretend I didn’t.” She sounded angry, and I felt the pull to appease her, to calm her down, as so often was the dynamic in our relationship.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, as gently as I could. “You don’t have to pretend anything, Bel.” Was she jealous? Of me or of Kathryn?

Belanna shook her head, trying to speak. “You could have told me, you know. How long have we known each other? That was a bum way to have to find out.”

I felt irritated that Belanna could make me feel guilty so quickly, and more irritated that she was right.

“I’m not even sure what it is myself,” I said. The tamales were spicier than I’d thought; I looked around for a glass of water but didn’t see any.

“You’d better figure out what you’re doing then,” she said. “Or you’re playing with fire.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I said, sighing. “Look, Belanna, I’m sorry. You’re right, that’s a crappy way for an old friend to find out that I’m dating someone.” I went to the cupboard for a glass and served myself some water, then came back to the table.

“Is this some kind of secret that I need to keep?” she asked, standing over me and crossing her arms.

I shook my head. “Not a secret. Just -- we hadn’t gotten around to telling anyone but family yet.”

“How long have you been seeing each other?” she asked.

I didn’t have a chance to answer, because Tom shouted at us from the other room to come in and start watching.

I squeezed onto the sofa between Belanna’s taciturn Tío Lalo and her Mexican grandmother, who took it upon herself to shout _“¡Hijo de la puta chingada!_ ” at the television all night long as one state after another turned red. It was so bad that Belanna, who had been sober for five years, was threatening to have a beer. Tom and I held her back, reminding her of how far she had come, and she settled for some Sprite instead. The election was over before all the states had even reported, shortly before midnight.

We were well and truly fucked.

 _—Well, that settles it,—_ Sekaya texted me, and then a series of expletives.

 _—How’s Leslie taking it?—_ I wrote back. Leslie had been so excited about the idea of a woman in the White House.

_—I’m cussing, she’s crying. How’s Belanna and Tom? Tell them hi.—_

_—I already did. Her abuela’s cussing too. —_

_—Man what a night. Fuck this shit.—_ I smiled despite myself. My sister always had a way with words.

_—I love you, Sky. Take care of yourself.—_

_—Love you too, little brother.—_

As the group around me exploded in a torrent of desperate Spanish, I sent another text to Kathryn.

 _—How are you holding up?—_ I wrote Kathryn. I offered to help Belanna clean up the kitchen but she told me to stay where I was on the sofa.

 _—Don’t know how I’ll be able to sleep tonight, —_ Kathryn wrote back.

 _—There’s no shame in insomnia at a time like this, —_ I wrote. _—Where are you?—_

_—At Miranda’s cottage.—_

_—Can I come by?—_

_—Now?—_ It was midnight. _—I have patients tmrw morning. —_

_—So do I. Can I come by?—_

Twenty minutes later, Kathryn opened her door to me and came out on the porch at Miranda’s cottage. Her face was haggard, mascara lining her eyes in an almost gothic fashion. She was clearly devastated. I took her in my arms and held her close. She brought her hands to my chest and nestled in, allowing me to stroke her hair and kiss her temple. The night was cool and crisp, and I could see my breath in the dim light from the house.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. Her body was warm in my arms.

She sniffed. “It’s not your fault,” she replied.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here with you,” I explained. “Were you alone all night?” Now I felt selfish for not having invited her to Belanna’s when my plans changed.

“No,” she said, pulling back to look at me. “I watched most of it with Miranda, until it was clear what was going to happen. Then I walked back here to be alone.” She sighed deeply and shifted within my arms, allowing me pull her closer. We stood there a minute on the porch, just embracing, not speaking.

“I can’t believe it,” Kathryn said at last. “Of course, I know it’s happening – but I can’t believe it. I called my mother and sister and we all wore pantsuits today. I feel so foolish.” Now she was wearing her pajama bottoms underneath her down parka, I noticed.

“Shh,” I said. “You didn’t know.”

“But _you_ did, Chakotay. You knew.” She sounded desolate, small.

“I suspected,” I corrected her. “I thought it was likely. It’s happened before.”

“And I--I did _not._ ” Her voice broke. “Again, I feel like such a fool. That pantsuit. I want to burn it.”

“I thought it looked nice on you,” I said, trying to make light of the situation.

Kathryn pulled back and sat in one of the wooden recliners on the porch. I sat next to her in the other. The space was dark except for the warm light that shone in from the windows. I heard a cricket’s chirp and the gurgle of water in a pipe, and watched a darkling beetle cross the wooden floor.

“You aren’t going to say ‘I told you so’?” she asked, staring levelly at me.

“What good would that do?” I responded. “But I’ll say it if you want me to: I told you so.”

She sighed loudly, her head resting on the back of the chair. She threw one forearm over her eyes. “You did, didn’t you?” She was silent for a minute. “I feel like I’m in shock. I still can’t wrap my head around it, what this will mean.”

“Sounds like shock to me,” I said. I bent forward slightly, reached across to touch her knee.

“And how are you doing, Chakotay?” she asked, her eyes visible again.

I thought about how to answer her. “I’m not in shock, if that’s what you want to know. I suppose I’m angry, but that’s nothing new.” I grabbed a leaf from one of her potted citrus trees and rubbed it between my cold fingers, the smell of neroli sharp and sweet in the air. “Angry and sad, too. Sad that this country still doesn’t know what it needs. Sad that it keeps getting these chances to do right, and then--back into the darkness.”

“I don’t feel angry yet,” she said. “I suppose the anger will come later.”

I held my arms out to her. She rose and came to sit in my lap. I kissed her hair and held her close. As if she had been waiting for it, she started to cry.

“Kathryn,” I murmured. “You’re too hard on yourself. It will come when it comes.” She began to sob then, the wracking sobs of true grief, and I did not respond but merely held her.

I fished in my pocket for a tissue, wiped her eyes, kissed her nose. She kept crying and buried her face in my shoulder. I rubbed her back, shushed her like a baby.

“I’ve been so afraid of losing you,” she said at last, surprising me. “I keep thinking this will be too much for you— _I’ll_ be too much for you. And then you keep coming back. Or, rather, you don’t go anywhere. I’m the one who leaves and comes back. And you’re still here.”

“I keep coming back,” I repeated. “ _You_ keep coming back.”  

I remembered the dreams I’d had lately of fire and drought, and how each had ended with the return of water and abundance to the land. I remembered how Kathryn and I had first met all those years ago, in that large lecture hall with its wooden seats and high windows. I remembered the sense of desolation I had felt when Kathryn left for Indiana, and the cautious joy when she first visited me at her return. I thought of the peach trees I had planted five years ago, only now reaching their full stature. I thought of the dream I’d had of my father, how convinced I was finally of his love for me, when at last it was impossible to speak with him again.

“Time is circular,” she said. “ _You_ told me that once. And you keep coming back to me.”

“Nothing is ever truly lost,” I said, and in that moment I believed it, remembering a thousand glowing fish swimming around our ankles, as numerous as the stars in the sky; remembering her swollen belly, tight and round under my fingers; recalling the lizard who watched me from the grove where we had made love.

Kathryn started to cry again, but less fervently. I kissed away her tears, kissed her cheeks, gently kissed her mouth. She trembled against me, her body a live wire. I noted the moment, observed when companionship turned to lust: the jagged pant of her breath, the heat of her mouth against mine, the fervent little hums she made while rubbing her hands over my ribs.

It would be so easy to get lost in our joining again, to resort to that physical connection we had once shared, and to let this night end with the hard satisfaction of orgasm rather than to sit with the sadness and despair that had come upon us. Sex as a remedy for hopelessness, sex as a poetic counterweight to the hatred spewn today--it would not have been the first time I’d used my body for such purposes, to harness the life-giving forces in a universe bent on destruction. 

But it was life-giving, too, to sit here with Kathryn in loving darkness, to watch the clouds pass over the bright face of the moon, and to kiss again and again her sweet mouth.

I listened to her breath, her heartbeat, took her chilled hands in mine.

“Thank you for coming, Chakotay,” she said hoarsely. “For coming back. And now--now I should get some sleep.”

I pulled back slightly, rubbed my lips against her hair. “I’ll go now, Kathryn,” I said. But I knew that, although I left her that night, I would find every reason to never leave this woman again.  

“Good-night.” Kathryn rose from her chair and disentangled her limbs from mine. She looked smaller now in the darkness, smaller and more precious to me.

At the doorway I stooped to kiss her forehead. Then the door locked behind me, and I walked back to my truck.

 


	16. Chapter 16

Although she must have been exhausted, Kathryn called an extra staff meeting the following morning at the Second Mesa clinic. My colleagues trudged in slowly—Belanna, Tom, Harry, Dr. Zimmerman, our receptionist Don Felix, and a few of the other nurses and lab techs. The mood was somber, but Kathryn at last gave the speech I was hoping for from her.

“I know last night was a disappointment for many of us,” she began, looking around the room. “And I’m not here to tell you to get over that and move on. I don’t know that I can do that myself.” I looked around the table. Belanna had tears in her eyes, and I could feel the moisture in my own.

“Here, here,” Tom chimed in, then whispered an apology when Belanna glared at him.

“Rather, I want to remind you of how important our work is, today more than ever. With this new president, we don’t know what will happen to the Affordable Care Act, we don’t know what will happen to our undocumented patients – hell, we don’t even know what will happen to the Indian Health Service! But what I do know is that we can’t lose sight of how important our role is in this community: to provide accessible, low-cost care to rural residents. And to do that, effective today, we have to make some changes to our clinic policies.”

Janeway leaned forward, her elbows resting on the table, looking around the room at each of us. She spoke in that brusque, no-nonsense tone of hers that reminded me of why IHS had chosen her as my father’s replacement.

She continued apace: “I don’t know what government oversight will look like next year or the following. I don’t know what will happen to HIPAA if the government decides to track down undocumented immigrants. So we have to go underground, team, and practice some healthy paranoia.” She lifted her chin and looked at us for questions.

“What do you mean?” Doctor Zimmerman asked.

“I’m sorry to say it,” Janeway said, “but we have to assume that our records could be read by government forces, for unethical reasons, and plan accordingly. So from now on: no further mention of immigration status in anyone’s chart. I know we don’t see many Muslim patients, but just to be safe: no further mention of a patient’s religion in their chart, either. Any questions? Any suggestions?”

So we were going there: this was real, this was really happening. I knew I’d remember this conversation for years to come, as the moment when we all realized just how far gone the situation was.

“What about Child Protective Services?” I asked. “Do we know what they do with reports on undocumented immigrants?”

“Good question. Harry, can you find out about that?” she asked.

“Yes, Dr. Janeway,” Harry said. “I’ll call the state office later this afternoon.”

“Good,” Janeway said. “We are mandated reporters, we still have to cooperate with CPS and law enforcement. But let’s be clever with how we collaborate. Let’s find out what they need and be more careful to withhold what they don’t need.”

Harry spoke again. “If you want, Dr. Janeway, I can research what CPS and the police do with reports we send them. I have some idea of who to talk to at those agencies.”

“Excellent plan!” Janeway replied. “These policies will likely change, too. Can I task you with keeping track of any relevant changes in the next six months?”

Harry agreed, of course; I think we all would have agreed to anything she suggested at that moment, to any action that would have given us some modicum of control over this disastrous situation.

“I’d like to talk to each of you individually, at some point in the coming week,” Kathryn continued, leaning back in her chair. “I’d like to pick your brains about how we can continue to provide the best care for our patients, given the times.” We all nodded. “And, until then, may I just say what a privilege it has been for me to work with all of you this year? You all are such professionals: I feel that I can depend on each and every one of you. I know it hasn’t been easy to have a new director at the clinics, and I know I have have been absent in recent months. But I am grateful for the trust you have placed in me.”

“Dr. Janeway,” Belanna said. “I think I speak for everyone when I say that we are lucky to have you as our director.”

Kathryn smiled, and the staff meeting broke up soon afterwards. That meeting, more so even than the election the night before, called us firmly into the reality of our new lives under the new regime: the suspicion, the caution, the careful planning, and, yes, the solidarity as well, the love that welled up in me for our team that had been through so much together in the last few years. It was a charged moment; we all sensed that we would remember this meeting, and her words, for years to come.

The rest of my day was full of patients, hour after clinical hour of people pouring out their shock, their outrage, their fear and despair to me. When it was done and I got ready to leave, I felt the same deep exhaustion in my body that I do after working with trauma survivors. It struck me suddenly that I was doing trauma work that day, as well.

On the long drive back to Flagstaff that evening, I felt the urge, as I sometimes do, to turn around and go back to the Reservation, to flee the city and its inhabitants and burrow back into the sandy dirt of the desert like a snake about to shed its skin. I felt unclean, in need of ritual to ground me and return me to myself, to my body and to my people. I missed my father more than ever; I wanted to know what he would have said to me then, how he would have tried to heal this great wound that was welling up within us all, this trauma repeated upon trauma. I had distanced myself in recent years from the Hopi elders, finding it increasingly complicated to work as a psychologist in the community where I had been raised without tripping over multiple relationships at every turn, and as I drove back to the city I realized how much I missed being a part of the everyday life of my people. Psychologist, shaman, healer – we had always lived somewhat apart from the rest, those of us who do this kind of work, and at a time like this the isolation was wearing on me. Their rituals, too, called to me, the precise gathering together of movement and time and meaning that had been the backstay of my childhood on the reservation.

It was past dark when I got to my apartment in Flagstaff. I sent Kathryn a quick text: _—Are you back in Flag yet?—_

 _—Yes, —_ she wrote back. _—Just got home. —_

_—Me too. I’m beat, but want to suggest something for later. —_

_—Yes? —_

_—Are you busy on Saturday? —_

_—Nothing I can’t postpone. What do you have in mind? —_

_—Day trip to the rim. I need to see something bigger than myself. —_

_—And he picks the Grand Canyon, —_ she wrote, in what I assumed was a joking tone.

_—Are you game? —_

_—What time? —_ she wrote.

_—I’ll pick you up at 9. —_

_—It’s a date. —_ That made me smile. Indeed, another date. Might as well get this right the second time around.

When we first started seeing each other, Kathryn and I hadn’t so much dated as fallen into bed together. I thought back to that time now, to those first few months when I had tried to convince myself that it was all right if we were just fuck buddies to start. Kathryn had seemed so determined to keep things on a light note then, to never stray into too deep an intimacy, to give me her body and company but little else, and, fool that I was, I’d accepted her conditions with the hope that it would turn into more. And then, just when it had seemed that she was ready to open up to me, the incident in Sedona had happened and everything had gone to pieces. And now, this tragedy of an election—would we never get a break?

What would it be like, I wondered, to have met at an earlier and more tranquil moment of my life? For instance, to have met in those satisfying first few years after my licensure, when I was scarcely past thirty, building my practice and helping my father at the clinics—that would have been the ideal time to find a partner and settle down. Instead, I’d become entangled with one flighty woman after another, repeating the same pattern of intense infatuation followed by sudden heartbreak. So Kathryn had encountered me at thirty-nine: single again, mourning my father, and despairing of ever finding a woman to make a family with.

Kathryn had been so attractive to me when we met again—not just her physical attractiveness, though that was considerable, but also her intellect, her vigor, her curiosity and delight in the world. After graduate school, I had never dated a woman whose education had equaled my own—another consequence, I suppose, of being one of the very few people in the Four Corners area to have a doctoral degree. That had been another source of my loneliness, my intellectual attainment a further barrier to fully joining life on the Reservation. I hoped that I wasn’t a snob, but I couldn’t deny that as the years passed I’d come to have more in common with my father and his research team at ASU, or with my psychologist colleagues at conferences, than with the people I served.

That made Kathryn all the more appealing: the professional languages we shared, the common experience of working with patients. Even though I rarely drew on my Ivy League background now, that had been an energizing and ecstatic time of my life: the thrill of discovery—intellectual and sexual—mixed with the discipline of study, the application of myself to a singular pursuit. Kathryn still had that rigorous soul, that internal organizing principle that I had admired in my well-spoken college classmates of prep school origin. Her world was structured, logical, purposeful to the extreme—or at least it had appeared that way to me, until I learned something more of her past, that little that she had yet seen willing to share with me. Only then had I begun to question my assumption that she was flawless, innocent, untouched by sorrow; rather, I wondered now if she clung to the outward show of perfection as protection against life’s assaults.

In bed she had let go of much of that pretense, had appeared to enjoy fully the possibilities afforded to her by her warm body. She had not been shy in telling me what she liked and what she didn’t, or in showing me how eagerly she responded to my touch. Kathryn made love without guile, without reserve, and so it had been all the more shocking to discover, the next morning and nearly every morning after, that the intimacy we had shared did not spill much beyond the confines of the bedroom, despite the hikes and the meals and the shared hours together.

I remembered one night early in our relationship, back when we were still pretending it was a simple fling. It was a weeknight in February when Kathryn texted me and asked me if we could meet when I finished with my private practice. That was unusual for us: with the two clinic locations, and our different schedules at each, it was rare for us to try to see each other during the week. But it turned out we were both in Flagstaff that night, and I suggested I stop at her place when I got off work at eight. Kathryn was there to welcome me in, had even made a simple meal for me of some ravioli and salad, but hadn’t explained why she had wanted to see me until we were almost in bed together.

It must have been February, because she told me she hated Mardi Gras and didn’t want to be alone, which had reminded me what day it was. Belanna had brought some kind of shrimp empanadas in to work to share with us for the occasion and had mentioned that she was giving up refined sugar for Lent this year, because she was five years sober and couldn’t give up any more alcohol than she already had. When Kathryn told me she hated Mardi Gras I had wondered if she had some strange religious hang-up around Lent, maybe a product of a too-strict Irish upbringing or some other Catholic nonsense that I wasn’t privy to. The thought had briefly crossed my mind that maybe Kathryn was going to give up sex for Lent and was trying to find a nice way to let me down easy, but she didn’t tell me anything more about it, just told me she felt somewhat silly asking me over on a weeknight, but would I mind spending the night? And then we had gotten caught up in our lovemaking and we both fell asleep in her bed afterwards, and I had forgotten all about that strange comment about Mardi Gras until now.

That might have been an entrée into her past, if I had known where or how to look for it, or if she had invited it. I wondered now how to keep open that intimacy that had bloomed for us again in the last few weeks, how to keep cultivating the precious inner spaces that Kathryn had let me glimpse from time to time in the past year.

* * *

On Saturday morning I picked Kathryn up early to get to the Grand Canyon ahead of the crowds. It took almost two hours from Flagstaff to reach the part of the Canyon I wanted to show her, and we talked nearly the whole way. I couldn’t get enough of her conversation; her wit and enthusiasm were only slightly dampened by recent events, and it was a relief to just be with her again in this casual, friendly way. It wasn’t that we ignored the election, either--we couldn’t help but talk about it, it was all that was on the news and on our minds--but there was a quality to our banter that made me feel lighter than I had felt all week.

The country had changed this week, but the canyon rim was just as it had always been: the striated rocks in rose and gold, the trees clinging to the cliffs, the occasional glimpses down below of sandy riverbed and the silver snake of the river.

“You never wanted to bring me here before,” Kathryn commented, after we had followed a hiking path down from the rim for half a mile.

I shook my head. “It always seemed like a cliché,” I said.

“It _is_ a cliché,” Kathryn said. “But it’s also like nothing else I have ever seen.” I laughed. She caught her foot on a root, and I reached out to grab her arm and steady her. “Was this what you were looking for, Chakotay?” she asked, turning to me, still within my arms. “Was this big enough for you?”

I thought of telling her something about herself, about the way she fit in my arms, turning her comment into suggestion. But instead I pulled her close under my chin, kissed her hair, and thought for a moment before I responded.

“It is enough for now,” I said. I thought of the way the setting sun would turn the canyon red later that day. I thought of the fine tilt of Kathryn’s hands as she held a stethoscope, remembered the pale light of dawn after my father’s burial. “And yet it’s never enough. If that makes sense. It will take a lot more than a pleasant view to heal this world.”

“No one ever said otherwise,” Kathryn said softly. Then she pulled away and we began the strenuous walk back up to the canyon rim.

* * *

After lunch, I told Kathryn I wanted to take a detour before we headed home.

“Where to?” she asked. “Another ruin?” She smiled and it might have been a smirk, a memory of making love in another canyon. Incorrigible flirt, she was.

“Not a ruin,” I said. “Unless you are being very unkind.” She looked puzzled. “It’s a secret,” I told her. “For now.”

“A secret?” That sideways glance again—it nearly made me steer off the road.

“Stop looking at me like that!” I said.

“Like what?” she asked in a husky voice, not even feigning innocence as she batted her eyelashes.

“Like _that,_ ” I said. “Gods, Kathryn—look at me like that and I’ll want to pull over here right now.”

She laughed. “And why not?”

“You _know_ why not,” I said, smiling despite myself. I gripped the wheel harder, trying to get a hold of myself. The cream sweater she wore set off the gold in her skin and hair, and even her chapped lips were delectable above the high cowl neck.

“Oh yes,” she said. “Intentional chastity. That’s it. Remind me: _why_ are we doing that again?”

“To make it worth it,” I said.

She reached over and grabbed my hand from my lap. “As if there were any doubt,” she said. Her fingers felt cool, as they always did. I squeezed back, then returned my hand to the steering wheel.

A few miles before Valle I pulled into a smaller dirt road off the main highway. There had been more rain recently, and the dusty desert brush was interspersed with bright green sedges. My truck trundled down the road for another ten minutes before I pulled up outside a low, nondescript mobile home. I knew it was Aurelia’s by the dozen or so wind chimes that hung from the eaves.

“I want you to meet a friend of mine,” I told Kathryn. “I just hope she’s home, I didn’t plan this visit ahead of time. Her name is Aurelia Camargo, and she’d love to speak Spanish with you.”

I parked the truck, and we both got out and walked towards the house. I looked over at Kathryn, at the way she folded her arms in front of her chest. I offered her my coat but she shook her head: “I’ll be fine once we get inside.”

I called out to Aurelia before we got too close to the door; I knew she kept a gun somewhere, and I didn’t want to unnecessarily startle her.

The door opened, and a short, compact woman in her mid-sixties, with white hair pulled up in a bun above her impeccable brown face, opened the door.

“Roberto!” she exclaimed, taking my face in her hands and kissing my cheek. “If I had known you were coming!”

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you beforehand,” I said, kissing her back. She smelled of Castile soap and olive oil.

“ _No importa, no importa,”_ Aurelia murmured. “ _¿Y tu amiga?_ ” she asked, pointing to Kathryn.

Kathryn held out her hand to her. “I’m Kathryn Janeway,” she said. “ _Es un placer conocerla, Doña Aurelia._ ” Her Spanish had the Italian lilt of Buenos Aires, but it was a pleasant sound, fluent and strong. I would have mistaken Kathryn for another person if I hadn’t seen her speak.

“The pleasure is mine,” Aurelia said in her birdlike voice. “Come in! Come in!” She gestured for us to enter.

We passed through her doorway into the low, warm room, smelling of sage and chamomile and _copal_ incense.

I put my hand on Kathryn’s lower back and led her in. “Aurelia is a _curandera_ ,” I whispered to her. “The best around.”

“Fascinating!” Kathryn whispered back. “However did you find her out here?”

“I think she found me,” I admitted. “She has her ways.”

Aurelia turned around and looked at us both.

“I have been waiting for you to bring someone here,” Aurelia said, and for a minute I thought she had had a premonition. “You are always so lonely, _m’ijo._ ”

I felt sadness suddenly, at the thought that others had noticed, that Aurelia – whom I saw only a few times a year – had observed my sorrow.

“Not any longer,” I told her, glancing sideways at my companion.

“ _Roberto es un tipo muy melancólico,_ ” Aurelia directed to Kathryn. Kathryn was looking around the room as our eyes adapted to the dark. “ _Le hacía falta alguien que lo comprendiera, que lo acompañara._ ”

“Hey!” I said. “If you’re going to speak Spanish, at least let me know what you’re saying!” My Spanish still didn’t pass the high school level.

Kathryn laughed. “She says you are a melancholic sort, Chakotay. I think she is right.”

“I don’t think that’s all she said,” I responded. “But that’s okay. Part of the reason I brought you here was so that you could speak to each other. Even if it’s about me. Sorry I interrupted.” The two women laughed, and Kathryn slid her arm through my elbow. I turned and, before I could think twice, bent and quickly kissed her mouth. I didn’t care that Aurelia was watching.

Aurelia offered us tea then, an herbal _tisana_ to protect against the abrupt changes in temperature this time of year. I sat on her couch and signaled for Kathryn to join me, cup in hand.

“Aurelia is from Chiapas,” I explained in a low voice. “She speaks Tzotzil Maya in addition to Spanish and English.”

Kathryn nodded. “Very impressive,” she said in a whisper. Then, “How did she end up here?”

“Her son was involved with the Zapatistas and they had to flee,” I said. “Much to our benefit.” I took a sip of the tea and it scalded my tongue.

Kathryn nodded at me, then began speaking in Spanish to Aurelia. I sat back on the couch, content to watch and listen to them both, to let their shared language wash over me. Kathryn’s voice was deeper than Aurelia’s, and their accents were different, but I could sense the mutual delight in the conversation, the meeting of two sharp minds, of two healers. I could only imagine what they were talking about: Aurelia’s herbal remedies, or her work as a _sobadora,_ giving medicinal massages. Or maybe Aurelia was quizzing Kathryn about antidepressants and painkillers, the way she used to ask my father and me about the same. Maybe they were talking about Aurelia’s garden: I heard the words _hoja santa_ and _epazote_ and _menta, perejil, tomillo,_ and I watched Aurelia gesture towards her garden.

“Chakotay has quite the garden,” Kathryn said in English, nestling against me, bringing me back into the conversation. I lifted an arm and draped it around her shoulder. I didn’t mind showing Aurelia what Kathryn meant to me.

“You should call him Robert, sometimes,” Aurelia said to Kathryn. “Or _Roberto_. I know, I know—he prefers Chakotay. But Chakotay was his father’s name. He needs his own name.”

“My father was Kolopak,” I reminded her.

“Kolopak Chakotay,” Aurelia responded. “The first Doctor Chakotay.” She said my name as if she were reading it in Spanish: Cha-ko-TY. “Roberto is the second Doctor Chakotay: Chakotay _hijo_ . But no less, _nada menos, ¿verdad, Catalina?_ ”

“I only ever met his father briefly,” Kathryn said, her voice loose and amused. I brushed my mouth against her ear, kissed her temple. She shuffled on the seat next to me and took my hand in hers.

“ _Era un buen médico,_ ” Aurelia said. _“Pero un poco creído._ Not like Roberto here.” She turned around in her seat to adjust the cushion behind her.

“She says your father was arrogant, but a good doctor.” Kathryn said to me. “Is that true, _Roberto_?”

I snorted. “Very true.” I didn’t much care for the name Robert, but I liked the sound of _Roberto_ on Kathryn’s lips.

“Aurelia,” Kathryn started, “tell me more about the herbs you use here.”

I jumped in. “I came for more _hoja santa_ ,” I told Aurelia. “And the other herbs you gave me last year, for the solstice. The winter herbs.” To Kathryn I said: “Both the Hopi and the Maya have rituals for the winter solstice. Aurelia keeps me in herbs, and I ---”

“He helps my daughter,” Aurelia said. “When her spirit leaves her _._ ”

Kathryn raised an eyebrow at me. “I don’t do much,” I explained. “Just bring her home again, mostly. Rosa tends to wander—a fugue state, you might call it. Aurelia calls me afterwards, and I try to help.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your daughter,” Kathryn said to Aurelia. “ _Qué pena más grande._ ”

Aurelia shrugged. “ _Así es la vida._ I have the herbs for you, Roberto, like you asked for.” She stood and quickly walked out of the living room, leaving me alone with Kathryn for a few minutes.

“Thank you for bringing me here, Chakotay—Roberto--?” Kathryn began. She turned towards me and I caught her hand in mine. I couldn’t stop touching her.

“You can call me Chakotay,” I said, feeling rather as if I’d been deprived of my name and feeling the urge to reclaim it. “My father always went by Kolopak.”

“I like Chakotay better than Robert, anyway,” Kathryn said. Her hair was coming out of its ponytail in soft wisps that framed her face. I leaned forward and kissed her. Her mouth opened easily under mine and I had the sudden, sensory memory of kissing her in her bed many months ago, the two of us naked and trembling against each other as she spread her legs open and drew me in.

Aurelia returned, clearing her throat abruptly. Kathryn and I pulled apart.

“Here,” Aurelia said, handing me several plastic bags full of dried herbs and other plants. I let go of Kathryn and stood, signalling to Kathryn that it was time to go.

Kathryn rose and took both of Aurelia’s hands, then kissed her softly on her right cheek, that parting gesture they both knew. “ _Ha sido un verdadero placer estar aquí con usted hoy_ ,” Kathryn said.

“ _El placer es mío,_ ” Aurelia replied. “ _Cuídele bien a Roberto, que ese hombre vale oro._ ”

“ _Sí, lo sé,_ ” Kathryn said. “I know what he’s worth.” I felt a flush spreading across my face but turned before the women could see my expression.

Kathryn followed me out the door and back into the truck. The sun was lower on the horizon and would be setting by the time we got back to Flagstaff.

“What a fascinating person,” Kathryn said. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

“She liked you,” I said. “I could tell.”

“I liked her too--very much.” I wondered what Kathryn would make of the Hopi elders and what they would make of her; they would be a more difficult set to win over, I suspected. But Aurelia was as good a person to start with as any, if I was going to introduce Kathryn to more of the people I cared for.

With that, I thought of my sister, felt the dread lie heavy in my heart.

“What is it?” Kathryn asked, sensing my mood change.

“Just something I need to figure out,” I said, not wanting to undo the spell that the day had cast: the canyon, the desert, the visit with Aurelia--and Kathryn, Kathryn throughout it all. “I’ll let you know when I want to talk about it,” I added.

Kathryn took my hand and squeezed it. “Take your time,” she said. Her voice was almost giddy, and her attitude was infectious. I felt the tightness in my chest release. A minute passed, and then:

“How much time do _you_ need?” I said, and now my question meant something else altogether.

She looked down at her lap before answering. “I don’t know. I joke about it, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready--doesn’t mean we should--”

“I know,” I said. "Just--when you are--tell me about it, okay?” The long afternoon light had turned the desert into gold, and the sun flashed on her earrings, her signet ring, loaning her a halo around her face.

“I will,” Kathryn said, and her voice caught in her throat.


	17. Chapter 17

For obvious reasons, my family doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, and Kathryn had decided to fly back to Indiana to be with her mother and sister for the holiday. “I can’t say I’m looking forward to the after-dinner conversation,” she told me earlier that week. “I’m positive my uncles and their families voted Republican. The bastards.”

“Then why are you going?” I had asked. We were in her office after work, and I was waiting for her to finish her notes so that I could take her out to dinner.

“My mother is in no condition to travel,” she said. “And it was important for her that I come.”

“Then you should go,” I said, thinking of the regrets I’d had after my mother had passed away.

“Doesn’t make it any easier,” she said. “I’ll have to bite my tongue and bear it.” She rubbed the back of her neck, apparently in some pain.

“You’ll do fine,” I said. “Just focus on the cooking and the eating and you’ll do fine.” I smiled at her.

“It’s times like this when I wish I knew how to knit. Then I could just sit in a corner and make booties or something. Ignore everything.” She shrugged her shoulders, then winced.

I laughed. “I have the feeling it would take more than a pile of yarn to distract you from a political conversation right now. But promise me one thing, Kathryn.”

“What’s that?” She looked at me out of one eye.

“Just come back with your head on straight. There are people here who need you.”

“Yourself included?’

“Absolutely,” I said. “But first, come here. Let me take care of those knots in your neck. When’s the last time you had a massage?”

* * *

On the Saturday evening after Thanksgiving, Sekaya and Leslie drove over to my place for dinner. Leslie’s college applications were almost due, and Sekaya had asked me to look over them one last time. My sister was very anxious about it all, was probably over-involved in the whole endeavor, but that made a lot of sense to me. Leslie was her only child, and ever since Sekaya’s husband had died ten years ago, Leslie had been Sekaya’s whole world.

Leslie’s essays were great, of course; what had made her a bit of a misfit at the reservation school made her an excellent candidate for any of the schools she was applying to. Like her mother, who had named her after Leslie Marmon Silko, my niece loved literature and creative writing. She was also a track and cross-country star, and several schools were recruiting her for athletics. Leslie would probably have to decide how seriously she would take her academics versus her sport, and if she was like the rest of the Chakotays, I knew which side would win out in the end. Leslie was smarter than Sekaya or I had been at her age, and I knew both of us regretted that our father hadn’t lived to see Leslie enter college.

Watching Sekaya hover over Leslie, watching how she read and re-read her daughter’s essays, reminded me of how Sekaya had been towards me when we were growing up.

My sister is five years older than I am, and she took it upon herself at a young age to be a second mother to me--not because my mother needed her help, but because Sekaya likes to take care of others. We’d had our share of difficulties over the years, but in childhood my relationship with my sister was uncomplicated. Simply put, I adored her. Sekaya was perfect to me: wise, caring, more capable than I ever was. When I was five, I wanted to be ten, and when I was ten I wished I was fifteen. I spent most of my youth wishing that I could catch up to Sekaya, wanting to be half the person she was.

My sister graduated our high school early and started ASU at age 17, which worried my mother but delighted my father. Then she spent four years studying pre-columbian history, even got admitted to a Ph.D. program in archaeology, but she turned it down and decided to get her teaching credentials instead. She got licensed to teach history and English, and was planning to stay in Tempe to teach. But that was the year that my mother died. I came back home to work in the clinic. Sekaya found her first job at the Reservation school, where she had been ever since.

“Leslie’s writing is very good,” I told Sekaya, once Leslie had left the kitchen after dinner. “And her grades, and her extracurriculars. I don’t think you have anything to worry about. She’ll get into a good school.”

“Do you think she’ll get into Dartmouth?” Sekaya asked.

I shrugged. “Hard to say, it’s such a lottery these days to get in to those kinds of places. Plenty of excellent students don’t get in. But Sky -- is this really about her getting into Dartmouth?”

“What do you mean?” my sister said. She slid her long hair, still mostly black but peppered with grey, over one shoulder. She looked up at me.

“It’ll be hard to see her go,” I said. I handed Sekaya the dish I had just washed and she began to dry it with a towel. “There’ve been a lot of changes for our family these past few years.”

She sighed deeply and put the plate into the cupboard where it belonged. “Hand me another,” she said, and I rushed to finish washing the next bowl. We worked together in silence for several minutes before Sekaya took up the thread again. “I don’t know what’ll happen when she leaves, Chak.”

I put down the plate and turned to take my sister in my arms. I kissed the top of her head and marvelled, as I so often had done, that this petite woman had once towered over me. Now she barely came up to my chin. “You’ll do fine,” I said. “And I’m not going anywhere, remember? You’re still stuck with your little brother here on the Rez.”

“You’re not the same, either, Chakotay. You haven’t been the same for a while.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, in the most neutral tone I could muster from years of therapeutic practice. I pulled away from her and started to work on the dishes again.

“Not since ‘Ina died. Not since--” She bit her tongue, but I knew what she wanted to say.

“Not since I started seeing Kathryn, you mean.” I took the dishcloth from Sekaya, hung it on the rack.

“You said it, not me,” she said. I turned and looked at her. She was leaning against the opposite counter, her arms crossed over her chest.

“What happened between the two of you?” I asked. I had an inkling, but I needed to know more.

“What do you mean?”

I shook my head at her. “Just a feeling,” I lied. “Is there anything I should know?”

Her eyes darted back and forth. Then she bowed her head, looked at the floor, and looked up at me again.

“When you told me about what happened to you in Sedona, I went to talk to her.” She kicked at the floor with her white sneakers.

“What?” I sputtered. “When was this?” I felt the anger begin to rise in my chest. _That interfering, bossy sister of mine. Could she never let me live my life?_

“Right after you told me. Back in the spring, I don’t remember exactly when.” There went her feet again, tapping. I wanted to tell her to stop, it was annoying, but I also wanted to hear what she had to say.

“April. That was in April. All this time, and you didn’t think to tell me?” I wiped my hands on my apron and looked at her.

“Well, you weren’t together again until recently,” Sekaya said drily.

“No thanks to you!” I spat out. I was furious, and I didn’t care if Leslie could hear us in the other room. “I want to know exactly what you said to her. Exactly what happened.” The pieces were beginning to fit together: Kathryn’s reluctance to be around my family, her caution every time I mentioned my sister. I thought of how Kathryn had kept an exaggerated distance from me in the months after Sedona, and I wondered how much of that could be laid at my sister’s feet.

Sekaya looked defeated. “I went to her condo,” she began.

“You drove all the way to _Flagstaff_?” I asked. I couldn’t believe it.

There was guilt on her face. I was desperate to know what had happened.

“I was angry at her, Chak. All I could think of was the danger you’d been in, and how she didn’t seem to _see_ it!”

“So you thought _you’d_ make her see?” I asked. I picked up the dishrag and began to dry the dishes in the rack, anything to not shout at my infuriating sister just then. “And just how well did that go?”  I noticed my hands shaking as I stacked some clean plates in the cupboard.

“Not like I expected,” Sekaya said. “She just sort of... _collapsed_.” I tucked the dishcloth in my apron pocket, turned to look at my sister again.

“Collapsed?” I was puzzled.

“Yeah, like I was talking about her privilege, and all of a sudden she slid down the wall and just sat there. Not looking at me. It was weird.” Sekaya rubbed her palms together so hard that I wondered if she could feel the heat.

“Did you ask her what was happening?” I said.

“I gave her my hand, tried to help her stand up. But she just sat there. She wouldn’t look at me. So I left. I got the feeling that she was--like she was somewhere else. Or someone else. I don’t know how to explain it.” She opened her hands and looked at her palms, now red.

“I think you explain it very well,” I said. She was describing the classic signs of dissociation, not that my sister would have known what that was. But I knew, and I was as concerned for Kathryn as I was enraged at Sekaya. “So, let me get this straight: you drove two hours to Flagstaff to harangue Kathryn about something that happened _to me_ \--not that you bothered to tell me what you were doing--and then when she didn’t respond the way you wanted, you just left? What could you possibly have been hoping to get out of it?”

“I was hoping she’d leave,” Sekaya said, the first straightforward thing she’d said on the topic.

I exploded. “Well, weren’t you happy that you got what you wanted?” I shouted. “Anything else you think you need to fix in my life?” I was so angry at her I could have thrown her out of the house.

She was silent. We were both silent. And then, “I was wrong,” Sekaya said softly.

I was still furious at her. I didn’t let her speak. “Damn right you were wrong,” I said. “You meddling, malicious--”. I would not call my sister a bitch, but I was thinking it.

“I was so scared for you,” she said. “I panicked. I--I wasn’t thinking straight. You know how I get sometimes.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “But you didn’t think straight for at least the two hours it took to drive there.” I had seen it in her before: the way she convinced her students’ parents to let them finish high school; the way she filled our state newspapers with strident, eloquent editorials; the way she had called Leslie out when she came home with her first and only C. I had always admired my sister’s righteousness, her strivings to correct the wrongs of the world. But now her actions towards Kathryn reeked of hubris. Whatever Kathryn had done--or not done--to me, it was my place to fix it. Not Sekaya’s.

“I don’t know what bothers me more, Sky: the fact that you confronted Kathryn, or that you didn’t tell me about it until now.” I felt my voice growing calmer as I worked out my thoughts.

Sekaya hung her head. “Chakotay--” she began. “Do you love her?” She raised her head and met my eyes.

“Is that any of your business?” I said. Sekaya began to cry, and immediately I felt guilty. Obviously my sister was troubled by her behavior. And I wasn’t giving her quarter. Yet.

“Yes,” she said. “It _is_ my business. Because _I_ love you. I’ll never stop loving you. And if you love her--well, that’s enough for me.”

“What do you mean?” I said, the tightness in my chest beginning to loosen at last. And then, “Do you really mean it?”

“I want you to be happy.” She paused. “Do you think it’s been easy for me all these years, watching you miss out on one chance after another for a family?”

“I don’t think Seska was a very good chance,” I said.

“I don’t mean Seska. What about that psychologist from Tucson?” She met my eyes and she was my sister again, the one who cared about me.

“Sveta? We only went out together a few times.”

“Or Belanna--”

“Belanna and I were never on the table,” I said. “That’d be like dating my little sister.”

“Still--there were other women you dated, besides Seska. Women you might have been happy with. But ‘Ina never approved of any of them. No one was ever good enough for you. And maybe I began believing that, too, that no one was good enough for our special boy.”

“Do you think ‘Ina is the reason I never married?” I asked.

“Looks like that from where I stand,” she said. “Being the heir apparent comes with its own set of troubles, doesn’t it?” This was an old wound of Sekaya’s, the knowledge that I had always been our father’s favorite.

I turned towards the sink and looked out the window, noticed how dark it was outside. “Is this about Kolopak?” I asked. “Is that what it’s really about?” Night was coming so early these days.

I could see Sekaya’s reflection in the glass. She shook her head. “Not really. Not now, now that he’s gone.” She paused, considering. “Only to the extent that I was doing to you what he always did to both of us. He never approved of Richard, you know.”

“I know,” I said, feeling the old sympathy return for her.

“It always meant a lot to me,” she said, “that you liked Richard.” Who could have helped but like the kind-hearted parole officer she had married? How could I have begrudged my sister her happiness, when she had taken care of us after our mother had died?

I turned around and faced her. Sekaya continued: “‘Ina is dead. It’s time for us to move on. Time for you to move on, little brother.” I smiled at her and took her hand. “It’s your turn now,” she said, and put her arms around me.

“Thank you,” I said, kissing the top of her head. I felt light now, as if she had taken away a burden I hadn’t known I was carrying.

Leslie walked into the kitchen and we opened our arms, let her into the embrace.

“What’s this for?” she asked. She smelled of cherry lip balm and hairspray, this girl turning into a woman before our eyes. My niece, my blood.

“No reason,” I said. “Just because we’re family.” We pulled apart, each one of us leaning against a different counter.

“Uncle Robert--” Leslie had always called me that, it was a sort of joke between the two of us; “The cross-country championships are in two weeks. Mom wanted to make sure we invited you.”

“And Kathryn, too,” Sekaya added. “She’s invited. I hope she’ll come.” She put her hand on the counter, scooped some crumbs into her hand, deposited them in the sink.

“Shall I tell her that, or will you?” I said.

“I’ll invite her,” Sekaya said. “I’ll stop by Miranda’s tomorrow.”

“She’s in Indiana for Thanksgiving,” I said. “But she’ll be back on Monday. You can ask her then.”

“Are you dating the doctor again?” Leslie asked. I nodded. “Do you think she’ll come?”

“I hope so,” I said. “I certainly hope so.”

“Just a minute,” Sekaya said, as her phone rang. She stepped into the hallway to answer it.

“I want to meet your girlfriend,” Leslie said. “How come you didn’t introduce me before?”

I reached over and rubbed the top of her head, like I used to do when she was small. “We have been taking it slow,” I said. “Not something you’d understand, at your age.” I winked at her.

Leslie batted me with a dish towel. I had caught her making out with a classmate once behind her school. I hadn’t told her mother, but my poor niece had had to sit through “that conversation” with me the following day. I found it all very amusing, but she hadn’t stopped blushing.

“Well, when she gets back, you both should come over for dinner.”

“That’ll depend on your mother,” I said. “Wouldn’t want to push anything.”

“Maybe for the solstice!” she said, her voice almost gleeful.

“Man, taking it slow just isn’t in your repertoire, is it, Leslie?” I asked. “We don’t want to scare her away.”

“What do you mean?”

“Inviting her to solstice would be pretty serious. It would mean--” I paused and she interrupted me.

“That you had intentions towards her?” She asked. Leslie was definitely reading too much Austen and Brontë, if her mother had anything to do with it. “But don’t you? Entirely honorable ones, I mean.”

I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. “Entirely honorable,” I repeated.

“Well, don’t wait forever,” she said, with all the wisdom of her eighteen years. “Women don’t like to be kept waiting.”

Sekaya came back into the kitchen. “That was Miranda. One of her pipes burst. She’s called a plumber but she needs help cleaning up. I’m sorry, but we should go help her.”

“Want me to come too?”

“No, she said there’s no need. Thanks for dinner. We’ll have you over again soon. I’ll check with Kathryn about the meet.”

They gathered their things and I walked them to the door, hugging both of them before they left.

It had been good to see them, to clear the air between my sister and me. But right now I wanted nothing more than to talk to Kathryn again. It felt like ages that she’d been gone, and we hadn’t made any definite plans to see each other when she got back. I wondered how her trip back home had gone, if any sparks had flown at the dinner table. I wondered how her mother was doing. Most of all, I wondered what her experience had been of the day that Sekaya had visited her.

I longed to see Kathryn, to hold her, make love to her again. I was struck by the sudden sense-memory of her warm skin, the slide of her hands over mine, the laughter in her throat when I kissed. Hadn’t we waited long enough?


	18. Chapter 18

_— American says my flight from Phoenix is going to be postponed till tomorrow,—_ Kathryn texted me around noon the following day.

 _— Bummer! —_ I was supposed to pick Kathryn up at the small Flagstaff airport that evening. — _Do you want me to come get you? —_

_— Nah. I’ll rent a car at PHX and drive back. —_

_— When are you landing? —_

_— I’m about to take off. Landing in about 4 hrs. —_

_— I’d like to pick you up. —_ I wrote.

_— Well, in that case… —_

_— See you a little after four? —_

_— I’d love that. —_

_— That’s why I’m offering. —_

_— Thank you, Chakotay. —_

_— See you soon. —_

I would have driven a lot further than Phoenix to see Kathryn again.

As I met her at the baggage claim and hoisted her duffle bag on my shoulder, it struck me that I’d never picked up a woman I was dating from the airport before. It felt very intimate to be the one to help Kathryn out, to take her arm and show her to my truck. By the hug and kiss she’d given me when I first saw her, I gathered it meant something to her to have me there too.

“What a luxury,” she said, as she settled on the worn front seat. I laughed. My truck was hardly luxurious. “You don’t know how grateful I am that you came to get me,” she said.

I didn’t want her to be grateful. I wanted her to know how much I loved her.

“Any time,” I said, as smoothly as I could. “I want to be the one you call when you get into situations like these.” I looked over at Kathryn. She blinked back at me.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. “Though I’m not in the habit of getting stranded far from home.”

“Just in case,” I said. “You’ll know who to call.”

She cleared her throat as I began to back the truck out of the parking lot. I looked over my shoulder to make sure the road was clear, then straightened the wheel and pulled forward. I glanced at Kathryn again.

“Thanks again for coming down,” she said. “It means a lot.”

“My pleasure.” I smiled at her. It really did give me pleasure to do something like this for her. “Now, tell me about Thanksgiving dinner.”

She groaned and threw an arm over her face. “Where do I even start, Chakotay? It was a shit show. My Uncle Harry kept talking about how we needed a ‘strong president’ to right the economy, which was codespeak for ‘We need a man in power.’ And my Aunt Claire kept goading me about the irony of my living in a red state again after trying to escape Indiana all those years ago. My mother swore she wouldn’t talk about politics at all, so she was no help. But my sister Phoebe gave as good as she got. She began shouting at Bill while he was carving the turkey. It was a disaster.”

“Sounds like a typical family holiday, then,” I said, laughing. “How did you get through it?”

“Honestly, knowing that I was only out there for a few days did wonders for my sanity,” she said. “And knowing I was going to come back here and be able to talk to you about it, too,” she added. We both sat in companionable silence for a minute. “You know, for the first time since I’ve moved here--Arizona feels like home. I kept thinking when I was out there, ‘I’ve got to get home.’ And, ‘Hold on, Kathryn, just a few more days till you’re home again.’ Isn’t that funny?”

“Why is that funny?” I asked, wondering if she even realized how much she had revealed.

“Not funny, just--I don’t know that I ever felt at home in San Francisco. It was like I always knew it was temporary, somehow.” She rested one knee up on the glove compartment, then turned her palms over and examined them closely.

“I’m glad you feel at home in Arizona,” I said. “And now -- do you want to go back to Flag tonight or do you need to be in Second Mesa tomorrow?”

“Flag’s all right.”

We talked some more about her holiday. She asked me what I thought about Thanksgiving, what it was like to not celebrate it when everyone else was doing so. Then the conversation moved on to the clinic, and holiday schedules, and whether or not we’d both take off the week between Christmas and New Years. I didn’t tell her about solstice yet, was still thinking it over.

It was very pleasant to sit again with Kathryn in the warm cab of the truck, to trade stories of family Christmases, to plan together for the coming months.

As we got closer to Flagstaff she grew quieter and I figured that she must be tired from her trip.

Then she changed the topic. “Do you ever get tired of traveling back and forth between the clinics?” She looked out the window, wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Sometimes I do,” I admitted. “But the drive gives me time to think. And I like both places. It would be hard to give it up.”

“Have you ever thought of just doing one?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “I used to just work in Flagstaff, when I was growing my private practice and supervising students. But then I started to build the house near Second Mesa. And seeing as I was there every weekend, my father invited me to work from the reservation clinic on Fridays. It’s worked out pretty well, being a traveling therapist. Keeps me on my toes. Why?”

“Just wondering what it would be like to try to have a family with that set-up,” she said. I nearly let go of the steering wheel, but managed to keep my cool.

“I always figured I’d cross that bridge when I came to it,” I said, as lightly as possible.

“And if _we_ came to it?” she asked, boldly. I kept my eyes on the road. We were really having this conversation.

“If we came to that point,” I said slowly, “I would hope we’d make that decision based on what is best for both of us. Together.” I paused, then: “But how is this working out for you now, Kathryn? Our being together?” As tempting as it was to talk about a future together, I knew we wouldn’t get there without focusing on the present first.

She sidestepped the question. “I couldn’t stop thinking of you when I was in Indiana,” she said softly. “I couldn’t get you out of my mind. It helped a lot with the political conversation, actually--I was so distracted I missed half of it anyway.” She laughed. “I’m a bit lovesick at present, Chakotay.” My heart gave a leap.

“That bad?” I teased.

“If only you knew,” she said, in that deep, soft voice of hers. I looked over at her quickly, admired the sharp lines of her profile. “I’d say it’s working out very well,” she said at last. “Being together again, I mean.”

“Good,” I said firmly.

“And what about for you?” she asked. I looked down the road, saw the exit for Flagstaff approaching.

“I want to be with you, Kathryn,” I said. “I like being with you.” _I love you_ , I thought, and then I said it out loud before I could stop myself.

“Chakotay,” she began. “Chakotay--” Her voice was high and strained.

“I love you,” I repeated. “I am glad you are here.” I reached over for her hand. “God knows why it’s taken me so long to say.”

“You told me once before,” she said. “You told me you were in love with me.”

I shook my head and squeezed her fingers. “It’s not quite the same thing. Falling in love--that’s more like something that happens _to_ you. Loving someone is something else. It’s something you do _for_ the person _._ ” I released her hand to move the clutch. My fingers felt warm where hers had been.

“I love you too, Chakotay,” she said quickly, her words running together. I looked over at Kathryn. She was smiling and I smiled back, sure I looked ridiculous in my happiness.

I was pulling onto her street. A decision had to be made. I thought of that hidden inner courtyard in her condo where we had kissed before. I thought of Kathryn’s lithe body, and what it would feel like to have her open under me again. I thought of how long we had waited, and what it would mean to wait even longer. To do it right.

“Kathryn,” I said. “I’m sure it’s been a very long day for you.”

“It has,” she said warily.

“I’d love to stay,” I said. “Continue talking--”

“But you have to go home,” she said quickly, the disappointment evident in her tone.

“I work at the Mesa clinic tomorrow,” I explained.

“You didn't tell me that!” she said. “You spent all this time driving! And you still have to get back there? You should have told me before you drove all the way to Phoenix.”

“I wanted to pick you up,” I said earnestly. “And I’m used to the driving--I grew up out here.”

“When will we see each other again?” Her face shone under the white knit cap she had just put on. It was chilly in Flagstaff these days.

“Saturday? My place--desert house?”

“That’s six days away!” she protested.

“As you’ve pointed out, with our complicated schedules, I don’t think we’ll be in the same location again until then,” I said. “Look, I know you don’t want to say goodbye right now, anymore than I do. But I can see the circles under your eyes. And I’m tired, too, and I still have the drive to the Rez. Let’s rest up, get back to work, and save next weekend for each other. OK?”

She nodded. “Very responsible of you,” she said. I stopped the car, walked around to her door and opened it. She stepped into my arms and I kissed her again.

“Just how responsible do you want me to be?” I asked her as I pulled away.

She knew what I meant. “Let’s just say that I’m saving Saturday for you,” she answered. “In every way.” Her voice was husky again, low and tinged with desire. I wanted to take her right there, pressed up against the truck, an adolescent fantasy returning. She put her fingers on my cheek and kissed me one last time.

“Until Saturday,” she breathed, before stepping away from me. As she walked towards the house, I saw a sway to her hips.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Saturday we met up early in the afternoon for a hike near one of the mesas. The light was that slanted, golden light of late fall, my favorite season to be out in the desert. It was an El Niño year, the forecast predicting a rainy winter, and we’d already had more rain than usual from the monsoons. It was likely we’d get a spectacular desert bloom in a few months. I looked forward to bringing Kathryn back there in the spring to see the ephemeral oases and the swathes of brilliant floral color against the valley floor, to hear the buzz of bees and watch a flock of egrets pass overhead.  

For now, Kathryn looked fantastic out there among the hills. The green of the grasses contrasted with the deep auburn of her hair, and her whole body looked light and confident as she moved up the path. I remembered our first hike together, when every glance had been imbued with such meaning, when I still wondered if I had been imagining the connection between the two of us. Today there was a similar portentousness to our encounter, to the way she had brought an overnight bag with her, even to the way she held my hand when descending a slope of scree. She felt it, I felt it: the stirrings of anticipation for the coming night.

When we got back to my house, Kathryn took a shower and changed while I started on dinner. Then we traded places and I washed up while she chopped the rest of the vegetables.

I took a longer shower than usual, for once not caring about the drought. I shaved my face, what little hair I had growing under my chin, made sure my neck was soft. As I soaped between my legs, I looked down and examined my body. I was still fit, something I prided myself on as I got older. I liked the firmness of my thighs and the width of my shoulders; there was something very satisfying about looking at myself and liking what I saw, after all those years when I wished I had had a different body--fairer, hairier, bulkier, whatever approximation of White masculinity had been most in vogue at the time. As I’d aged, I’d come to appreciate my body in new ways. I wondered if it had been the same for Kathryn, if youthful dissatisfaction with her appearance had ceded way to the supremely confident woman I was with now.

It felt very comfortable to come out to my kitchen and see a wet-haired Kathryn setting the dinner table. She wore a low-cut black shirt and loose, silk pants of the same color. I walked up behind her and put my hands on her waist. Then I bent and kissed the nape of her warm neck. “I’m glad you’re here,” I said. She caught her breath, then turned in my arms, seeking my lips with her mouth.

We kissed for several minutes before Kathryn pulled away and finished laying out the silverware.

Dinner passed by with pleasant chatter, frequent glances, and the occasional knocking together of knees under the table. I wanted her: by god, did I want her! I wanted to kiss her till she was trembling and then slowly remove all her clothes; I wanted to bring her to orgasm with my hands alone; I wanted to press her warm body against mine and ask permission before I entered her, drawing out the anticipation.

As I thought these things, I reached across under the table and began to gently stroke Kathryn’s knee.

Her chin went up and her head lolled to the side. She rubbed her neck with her hands. “Chakotay--” she said with a warning tone.

I pulled my hands away.

After dinner, I led her to the living room. I’d left some music playing while we were eating dinner and now she recognized it.

“Schubert!” Kathryn exclaimed. “Was this on random?”

I shook my head. “Not random. Not unless a playlist of lieder is random.” She stared at me in surprise. “I took two semesters of music history in college, Kathryn.”

“And the man plays me Schubert,” she said in a low voice.

“Obviously, this music must be meaningful to you too,” I said.

“It brings back my days in South America. Chamber music in old churches, opera at the Teatro Colón. That kind of thing.” She cocked her head, listening.

“You sound nostalgic,” I said.

“Who doesn’t feel nostalgic with Schubert?” she asked, laughing. “But they are very good memories, Chakotay. A special time of my life.”

“I wish I had known you then,” I said, remembering how she had sounded when she spoke Spanish with Aurelia: there had been a lightness to her voice that I was unfamiliar with, a joy I wanted to hear again.

Kathryn sat on the sofa and looked up at me. She shifted her hips and arched her back slightly, calling attention to the narrowness of her waist and the fullness of her breasts.

“Believe me, Chakotay, any nostalgia I feel for Buenos Aires pales right now in comparison to--” She cut herself off, looked away, then covered her mouth with her hand.

I sat next to her on the sofa and pulled her hand away, turning it over to kiss her open palm. She looked at me tenderly and I remembered the first time she had sat there, how even then I had wanted to make love to her. I knew what she was longing for right now, which memories were strongest in her mind.

I leaned over and kissed her. Kathryn opened her mouth readily to mine, and we stayed that way for several minutes, just kissing, no talking. I stroked her neck, then kissed her in the hollow underneath her chin. Her breathing was coming faster and she shifted, letting her legs open as she lifted her chest towards me. I could see her bra peeking out of her low neckline, and ran my fingers along the edge of the cup, not darting in, just touching the soft upper half of her breast. She leaned into me and I slid my other hand around her waist and up under her shirt to caress her ribs.

“Chakotay,” she said breathlessly. I had one hand on the bare skin of her stomach, the other cupping her breast. “Can we?” she said, and I knew what she was asking for.

“Do you want to?” I said, hoping she meant it.

“I haven’t stopped wanting this,” she said.

I pulled my hands away from her and looked into her eyes. “Yes, but right now?” I needed to be sure.

“Right now,” she said. “Unless you…?”

I shook my head. “No, no. I want to. I want to.” Kathryn climbed on top of me and pushed me against the back of the sofa, her hands on my shoulders. “No, wait,” I said, gently lifting her hands off mine. “Not here.” I rolled her off me and stood, taking her hand. I kissed her open mouth again and she nibbled at my lip. “Come,” I said. “I want you in my bed.”

“God,” Kathryn groaned. I tugged her away from the couch. She followed me down the hall towards my bedroom.

The room was neat and tidy; I always make my bed, but I had been especially careful to pick up around the house before I invited Kathryn over that night. I shut the door behind us and went to turn on the soft light by the headboard.

Kathryn looked around the room. It had been a while since she had been here, more than six months, and I wondered what she saw that was different. Same white cotton duvet, same black-and-white woolen blanket at the foot of the bed, same bookshelves and incense bowl.

“You’ve changed your photographs around,” she said, looking at one of the shelves.

“Did I?” I rubbed her neck with my free hand, bent to kiss her shoulder.

“Is that Canyon de Chelly?” she asked. She dropped my hand, pulled away to move closer to the picture frame.

“Yes,” I said. I stood behind her and circled her slender waist with my hands, lifting up her shirt slightly to feel her hip bones.

“When did you take this?” she asked, turning her head to look at me. I spun her around, keeping my hands at her waist.

I kissed her nose. “I’ve had that photo for a long time,” I said. “It was out in the living room. Didn’t you notice it before?”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I didn’t notice it until now. Chakotay—” she started, as if she wanted to say more. Then, “That place always reminds me of you. Of the first time we went hiking together.”

I kissed her. “And the other time, too,” I said.

“And the other time, too,” she said, and I knew she was remembering how we had made love amongst the grasses and the sand of the side canyon. I thought of telling her about the dream that followed; someday I knew I would.

Kathryn spoke again: “You keep this photo in your bedroom.” Her voice was high and pressured.

I kissed her cheeks, her neck, her ear. She moaned a little and I caught her open mouth in mine, kissed her with my tongue. Trembling, she led me over to the bed and made me sit down on the edge. Still standing, she began to undress first, her eyes never leaving my face. Kathryn pulled the shirt off over her head, then reached down to shed her loose pants, leaving her in a matching set of black panties and bra.

She was thinner than when I had last seen her naked, and not for the first time I wondered if Kathryn was getting enough to eat, or if she was the type whose anxiety made her skip her meals. But despite her thinness there was a healthy glow to her skin, and her muscles appeared firm and agile when she moved towards me.

I motioned for her to stay where she was. “Let me look at you,” I said from where I sat on the edge of the bed. I felt my cock swell as I let my gaze linger on her stomach, her firm shoulders and long thighs. She smiled at me and took a step forward. I buried my face against her chest, letting myself smell and touch and lick the soft skin of her collarbone. She was sighing again, moaning in that deep voice of hers, and I reached around to loosen her bra. God, those breasts—she had teased me with them before, and I hadn’t stopped admiring them, wanting to see and feel them again. She had always been so responsive to my touch there, and those memories urged me on.

As I sucked at a nipple I ran my hands up and down her back, stopping at the base of her spine, where her underwear began. Her breaths came quickly as I shifted from one nipple to another, aching to feel both of them again, and getting off on her light moans, on the way she arched into me. I ran my fingers under the line of her panties, just where her ass met the tops of her thighs, and she suddenly bucked her hips against me, in search of further touch.

Her voice was high again when she spoke: “Let me take off your clothes, Chakotay. For chrissake, I need to see you again!” She bent down and loosened my belt, then unbuttoned the tops of my pants. As she pulled the zipper down I raised my hips and helped her to slide the pants down my legs. Then she came back up and pulled my T-shirt off. She looked at my underwear and shook her head. “Those will have to come off, too,” she said, urging me to lift my hips again and sliding the soft cotton down my legs. I moved to sit in the center of the bed and Kathryn followed, kneeling next to me.

My penis bobbed up towards her, now fully erect and straining for her touch. She reached for it and laughter bubbled up in her throat, golden and warm. I kissed her mouth again, told her she was beautiful, and let her play with my cock for a while with her soft fingers. I leaned back and watched her.

Then she pulled away, dropping her own panties, and came back to straddle my waist. As she kissed me, I reached my fingers between her legs and found her wet and swollen, her folds opening easily to my touch. With care I slid one finger into her as I kissed her neck, her shoulder. 

“It’s been so long,” she said with a sigh, as I took a nipple in my mouth again. It had not occurred to me before then that she might have been with someone else during our hiatus. 

I stopped touching her long enough to roll her over so she was lying on her back next to me in bed. She arched her back and spread her legs, encouraging me further. I put my finger back inside her and she groaned. Her muscles clenched around my finger and I wondered at how tight she always seemed to be. Then I took my finger out and moved it up towards her clitoris, circling it gently, watching her face to see her reaction.

“Has there been anyone else?” I asked, ashamed of my jealousy but needing to hear her say it. Her folds were so wet, so slick, and I imagined how good it would feel to be inside her again.

Kathryn shook her head. “There’s been no one else but you,” she said. “Not since I came to Arizona. Not since Mark.” She was breathing heavily now, and looked away. I kept working her with my fingers, slow wide circles to build up the tension, then honing in on her center until it was too much for her and she began to squirm, and then I returned to those slow wide circles again, a teasing rhythm that had her panting and sighing under me.

“Good,” I said. I had no right to be so pleased; we had broken up, after all, and she had not promised me anything. But it still made me satisfied to learn that there had been no one else for her since we had been together. I put another finger inside her, stretching her around me. She raised her hips, impatient for my touch, but I skirted her clit this time, wouldn’t let her get that satisfaction yet.

“And you?” she asked from above, a twinge of something in her voice. Was she insecure, then? Whom did she imagine I would have been with?

I looked down at her, slowing the thrusting of my fingers inside her warm cunt. “Who else could there possibly be?” I said, and my voice cracked. She opened her eyes and looked straight at me.

“I just—I wondered,” she said. “Just like you did.” She groaned and I spread my fingers wide inside her, opening her as far as she could go.

“Kathryn—” I said.

“Like _that_ ,” she said. “Just—like— _that._ ” Now she was lifting her groin against my hand and I wondered if she would come from the penetration alone. I wondered how many orgasms she had in her tonight.

“How do you want to come?” I asked her outright. “Like this, with my fingers, or with my—”

“Yes,” she said, pushing my hands away. “I need you inside me. I’m not going to last.” She grunted out the last sentence.

Kathryn spread her legs wider and I nestled between them, sliding my penis into her as gently as I could manage. She exhaled sharply, and the slight pressure turned me on even more, the knowledge that I’d been the last person inside her and that it had been a while for both of us.

“God, you feel so good,” I told her, now in up to the hilt. She felt amazing but I wasn’t quite there yet. “I’ve missed you so much, Kathryn.”

“I’m gonna—come soon—” she said, beginning to thrust up against me. “I need you—to move—” 

I began to thrust inside her, starting with the long, slow strokes that she had seemed to like before. “How’s that?” I asked, smiling down at her. She nodded and I moved gently within her until her breath came faster and the sweat began to form at her brow. “Do you need me to touch you with my fingers too?” I asked her.

She shook her head and I began to move my cock inside her again. “I’m so close—I’m gonna—FUCK _don’t stop now!_ ” she cried. I brushed the hair back from her face and kept going. She was coming underneath me, her muscles tensing around me. Then she brought her legs around mine, joined her feet at the ankles, and kept me in place as she continued to milk me with her hips for the last pulses of her orgasm.

“I love you,” she told me.

I still hadn’t come, but I wasn’t expecting what she did next.

“I want your cock in my mouth now,” Kathryn said, sliding out from under me. Her voice was tremulous and I got the impression she was still riding out the orgasm, the intensity of her emotion, even as she separated herself from me.

Before I could speak, Kathryn nudged me onto my back and knelt above me. She began to caress my penis with her fingers. The head was swollen and coming out of my foreskin; it was especially sensitive like that, and I almost jerked away at first, until she gently pulled the foreskin up and over the glans. Then she lowered her head and took the head of my penis into her hot, ready mouth, and I nearly lost my breath. Her tongue slid over my penis, then she began to draw soft circles around the glans. She used just enough suction around the head to make me slightly delirious, and I did my best to keep from coming right there in her mouth.

Kathryn had only given me head a handful of times before. While she always seemed enthusiastic about it, I never let her go at it for long, afraid I would become too aroused and bolt inside her pretty mouth. She had never said she minded swallowing, never said she minded anything about it, really, but still I worried about it, and skirted away from the potential for rejection.

I wanted to buck up into her, wanted to hold her head down around me, but I sat as still as I could, hoping she would continue. It was an incredible feeling to have her lick and suck me. She continued at it for several long minutes, and then she pulled away for an instant. “Can you move?” she asked, before taking me back into her mouth.

“If I do that I’ll come,” I said.

She let my cock slide out of her mouth and looked up at me again. “I want to feel you move,” she said simply.

“Scoot over and I’ll be able to touch you, too,” I said, hoping to get her into a sixty-nine and prolong the pleasure for a little longer.

“Just you for now,” she said. “Like that!” she said, opening her mouth to my thrusting penis. Her lips slackened around me, none of the tight suction of before, but she allowed me to rock into her at my own speed. Her breath came quick through her nostrils and I realized she must have been getting off on this too, on the soft slide of my penis against her lips. I kept up that delightful rhythm in her willing mouth for several minutes longer.

When I came it was with a start and a shout, the most intense orgasm I’d had in years.

Kathryn began to suckle me again as I came down from the high, then pulled her mouth away from me with a “pop,” and nuzzled at my balls. She scrambled over me and held me in her arms. I don’t know how many times I repeated her name through the aftershocks of my orgasm. I remember burying my face in her neck, touching her breasts again, kissing her mouth. I remember the musky taste of her mouth and the tenderness in her eyes as my soul came back to my body.

“Chakotay,” she said at last.

“Kathryn,” I gasped. I wanted to cry; I wanted to shout. Instead, I held her tight and put my ear to her sternum, listening to her rapid heartbeat.

It took us a long time to say anything else to each other. We lay there in bed, limbs entangled, slowly caressing each other. I felt the pull of sleep but it must still have been early; did she need to go home?

“Kathryn,” I said. “Stay with me?”

I wanted to wake with her small body tucked under my arm. I wanted to dress her in my oversized shirts and fix her breakfast in the morning. I wanted to make her laugh at my jokes and smooth away the worry lines that had formed around her mouth since the election. I hoped I would have a chance to introduce her to the elders, and I knew that Sekaya had something to say to her. I wanted Kathryn in my life, as much of her as she would give me.

“I don’t want to leave now,” she responded, nestling up against my side.

“Then don’t,” I said, kissing her shoulder. “But hold on a minute.” I disentangled myself from Kathryn and slid out of the bed. I walked to the window to crack it, let the cool night air in.

In the morning I would remember that there were still things for us to deal with. Nothing between us had been earned without effort. But for now the stars shone brightly in the dry, clear night, and as I turned back to bed, I realized that I was entirely, blissfully happy.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so grateful for the critique and feedback of my beta, devovere, as I worked on this chapter. It's much better now than it was when I started, and I have her to thank for it.

I awoke early, my heart full with the knowledge that Kathryn was in my bed. In the dim light before dawn I rolled over and watched her sleep. I felt such affection, such love for her, and I realized with a start what a relief it was to not have to hold back from her, to lift my game face for once.

A strand of her auburn hair fell over her face and moved with each breath she took. I carefully moved it out of the way, tucking it behind her ear. Kathryn stirred with my touch and opened her eyes. “Chakotay,” she murmured, smiling over at me. I was lying on my side next to her, my head propped on one hand. I touched her cheek.

“Good morning,” I said. I couldn’t help but smile back.

“You could say that,” she responded.

“Sorry if I woke you,” I said. I leaned forward and kissed her forehead. 

“I was already awake,” she said, moving her hands around my neck in an embrace. I breathed in her hair, the scent of her skin. I wanted her again; it would be a long time before I’d be able to quench that kind of longing.

We made love. Skin on precious skin, her back arching against the bed, her legs spreading under mine -- she was as hungry for it as I was. First I brought her to an orgasm with my hands, and as she lay there panting with the force of it, I entered her. She was still trembling with the aftershocks of her climax and I felt her clench around me, once, twice, and then I let myself go, moving steadily in and out of her. I held her wrists down with my palms, and saw her eyes grow wider in surprise. 

I continued to thrust into her, building up a steady rhythm that had me on the edge. She gasped when the angle changed and I began to hit her cervix. “Are you alright?” I asked. I pulled back slightly, afraid I had hurt her. She shook her head, then slipped her hands out from under mine and put them on my hips, urging me to continue. Her mouth opened and she kissed me. I kissed her back. With every deep thrust my cock made, Kathryn shuddered and moaned. Then she wrapped her legs around my hips, her ankles locking together behind me, holding me close. I felt completely surrounded by her, consumed by her.  

And then I was coming, coming, swelling up into her, and she was pulling me closer, milking me to the last. I kissed her mouth, grabbed at her hair, stroked her cheek: anything to stay grounded, to keep the connection between us.

“Gods, Kathryn,” I said, once I had caught my breath again. In answer she clenched her muscles around me one last time, then loosened her legs. I rolled off her, reluctant to lose contact. I kissed her hair, her neck, her pert breasts. 

“Do you have another in you?” I asked her, as my fingers drifted down her belly.

Kathryn moaned. “Looks like I do now,” she said, shifting so her legs opened to me. I touched her folds again, swollen and wet from our love-making. She shivered against me and I found her clitoris, began to draw those steady rings around it that she had seemed to like so much. Kathryn closed her eyes, her hands gripping the sheets, her face intense with concentration. The expression was almost pained.

“Let it come,” I murmured to her. “Just relax.” She opened her eyes, then shut them. “There’s no rush,” I reminded her. “This is for you.”

Still, it took her longer to come that time, and I sensed she was struggling to reach her orgasm, to find that point where it would all tip over into pleasure. As I stroked her I continued to talk to her, to urge her to take her time. I would speed up, bring her almost to her peak, and then slow down again. I knew, from having made love to her before, that the alternating movements would do more to arouse her than any constant pressure on my part.

Indeed, as I slowed down my fingers, she began to lift her hips in frustration, seeking out my hand. “Shhh,” I told her. “You’ll get there. Just let it happen.” 

“You bastard,” she blurted out as my fingers stilled around her. “You’re such a tease --” I began the slow, steady strokes again, the ones I knew would bring her to completion. 

“You’re almost there, Kathryn,” I told her. “It’s starting to build.” My fingers moved faster and faster around her clit, as swollen as I’d ever felt it. She threw her head back and began to keen, her second orgasm overtaking her with greater force. She clamped her legs around my hand and held my fingers there for a long minute as she continued to shake and tremble with pleasure.

“GOD!” she cried at last, when even that contact was too much. I drew my hand away.

“I love watching you come,” I said. “You say so much with your face, your body.” I held her, gently caressing her, kissing her.

She turned and hid her face in the pillow for an instant, then came back to me. 

“Give me a minute,” she said, opening her mouth and panting. “I can’t speak.”`

I waited, stroking her hair. She closed her eyes and I kissed her eyelids, then her cheeks. “I love you, Kathryn,” I murmured.

She began to cry. Gray light was coming through the slats in the blinds, illuminating the contours of her body. I stroked her back and pulled her close to me. Kathryn nestled against my shoulder and I felt the dampness of her tears on my skin. I was overcome with emotion: love, tenderness, joy. The newfound intimacy between us was like a exquisite bud that had finally burst into bloom. Her tears were the kind that didn’t need comforting.

“What is it?” I asked her.

“Just -- I --” She struggled to find the words. “You. You --”

I chuckled. Having Kathryn rendered speechless was quite flattering.

We lay in silence for several minutes, our bodies entwined. I listened to the gentle noises her body made: the rub of skin against sheets, the soft sound of her breathing.

“At last,” she said. 

“What do you mean?” I asked. She rolled over and looked at me.

“Here again,” she said, waving her hands between us. “Back with you.”

“We were already together,” I said. I looked down at our legs, her knees pale against mine.

She scowled at me. “But not in this way,” she said, and I realized she was trying to tell me something.

“Sex,” I said. “It’s important to you.” 

Kathryn rolled her eyes. “Of  _ course  _ it’s important to me,” she said. 

“Of course,” I agreed. “But what I meant was--I think you need this kind of connection to feel close to someone, am I right?” I brushed the hair back from my brow and realized I had been perspiring.

“I can’t possibly see how that’s different from anyone else,” she said. 

I shook my head, thinking of how to word this. “Maybe not. But Kathryn--it’s  _ really  _ important to you. Right?”

I looked over at her and saw her eyes begin to tear up again. She nodded. “When I miss that touch--when I don’t have sex with my partner--it’s like something is wrong between us. The connection isn’t there. Not in the same way. It feels like I lose that person, even if it’s just for a few weeks or a few days.” I’d rarely spoken with a partner this way, about what sex meant to her, and the conversation felt more intimate than some acts might.

“So all these months…?” I trailed off. A bird was chirping and I heard the rush of wings near the window.

She swallowed. “I missed you more than you can imagine. But -- Chakotay, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

“What idea would that be?” I teased her.

“That it’s only about the sex.” 

“No?”

“Because it’s not. It’s just -- the sex was like this physical manifestation of my feelings towards you. The love. Even these last few weeks, when we were seeing each other again -- it was lovely, and I agreed we should take it slowly -- but something was missing for me.”

My view began to change of how easily she had slipped into bed with me the first time around. I had thought of her as hasty, and emotionally irresponsible, and had chided myself numerous times since for letting the sexual connection be the primary one between us when we were first seeing each other. But now I thought about gender, and what I’d say if a male friend or patient had told me something similar, about just how important the sex was to him to maintain that sense of connection. In fact, I’d heard that many times before from the men I’d counseled. What was more unusual was to hear it from a woman. Perhaps that was why Kathryn had seemed bashful and even a little defensive, telling me her feelings were normal. And perhaps this explained some of the misunderstanding between us, long before Sedona. 

“For me, it’s a little different,” I said. I thought carefully of how I would say this; I wanted to express myself, but didn’t want her to feel ashamed. “I usually fall in love first, and when the sex comes, it’s like the culmination of that love.” I reached for her, felt the cotton sheet between us.

“I think I need sex to fall in love,” Kathryn said bluntly. I sensed some apprehension in her tone, some fear of judgment. She looked at me. “You’re not like that, are you?” A breeze from the open window hit my cheek.

I shook my head. “No, I’m not like that.” But now we were talking in too many generalities. “I think I started to fall in love with you that first evening you came to the clinic,” I told her. “When you came back into my life again.”

“I knew I was in love with you that day we ran into your sister and niece at the Snow Bowl,” Kathryn said. “When I realized you weren’t just fucking me.”

“I was never just fucking you,” I said, slightly hurt. “I was in love with you.” 

I rose and walked to the window, winding it shut and then returning to the bed. After our lovemaking the room felt chilly.

Kathryn sighed. “So much misunderstanding here.”

“Misunderstanding, or difference?” I asked. I settled back against the pillow.

“What do you mean?” She lifted the covers and rearranged them around her.

“I understood that being with you meant more to me than it did to you. That was one difference between us, among others. But I accepted it, because I hoped one day you’d feel the same. And it started to seem like you did, that you might have been in love with me too, but then--”

“Sedona happened,” she said. 

“Yes,” I said. “But the difference was already there.” I thought of the other differences between us, the ones that had been more prominent at the time: the fact that she was white, and I was Hopi; that she was an outsider on the Reservation, whereas I’d been born there; that she slid easily into the social worlds that had taken me years of effort to enter. Those differences had been easier to note, when we first got together, and had appeared to be the cause of the rupture in our relationship. There had been something easier, at least on my end, in attributing most of our conflict to race or social class. But there were other, more subtle differences between us, differences that had more to do with us as individuals and less with the groups we belonged to: these were the differences we were talking about now. I wondered what it said about our relationship, that we were at last able to talk about these other differences. 

Kathryn rolled over and looked straight at me. “Do you think we are compatible, Chakotay? Or is this doomed to fail again? My need for sex, your need for love...”

I took her hand. “That’s too simplistic. You need love too, from what I understand. And it’s not like I don’t enjoy sex!” I thought of the first time I had invited her to my house. Every encounter that evening, every glance and every gesture, had fed my fantasies of physical connection with her.

She laughed. “You certainly seem to enjoy it.” I nudged her in the ribs. 

“Kathryn, you’re telling me the sex helps you feel the love, helps you feel connected to me. That’s not too different from what sex means to me. I only hope that, this time around, we can admit that both of them are important to us. The sex and the love. In whatever order.”

“Or at the same time,” she said.

“Or at the same time,” I repeated. “Even better.” I leaned over and kissed her. She kissed me back. I pulled away from her and stood up, looking down at her on my bed: her hair tousled, her arms and legs long and lean. “Let’s get up,” I said, reaching a hand out to her. “We can catch the end of the sunrise if we hurry.” 

We pulled on our clothes quickly in the still-dark room. Kathryn followed me down the hall and out the front door. It must have drizzled overnight, for the driveway smelled of damp earth and the Spanish pepper trees were fragrant with their spice. Kathryn slipped her hand in mine and I led her around the side of the house, down a small path that led to the scrubland beyond.

The air was cold and she pulled her coat around her more tightly. I heard birdsong, and the rustle of our feet against the gravelly dirt. Ahead of us, the pink sky was turning into gold, a brilliant circle of sun emerging just over the horizon. 

I stepped up behind Kathryn and wrapped my arms around her. “Good morning,” I said, whispering into her ear. She placed her hands on mine and leaned her head back against my shoulder.

“Fine way to greet the day,” she agreed. “I could get used to this.”

“I hope you do,” I said.

* * *

 

That night, before dinner, Kathryn told me about Rio.

We were sitting in my living room. I’d built a fire in the hearth, and Kathryn was curled up on the sofa with a cup of tea in her hands as she told me her story. 

“I don’t know where to start with this,” she began. “But I’ve been thinking a lot, about what happened with us after Sedona. I’ve had so many regrets about that day. And so much guilt for the way I acted. And I don’t want you to think that I’m offering you this as an excuse. There’s no excuse. But I thought -- that maybe it was time for you to know more about my past. However you want to understand it. To know me better.” 

I thought of telling her what I had already discerned from my conversations with my sister and with Tuvaq: that Kathryn had had some kind of traumatic shock reaction that day, and that it was related to the deaths she had witnessed in Brazil. But this was the psychologist in me who had put the pieces together, and I wasn’t sure how helpful my clinical interpretation would be to her at this time. Ultimately she needed to tell her story herself.

“I suppose it begins with Brazil. I want you to know what happened to me there.”

When she was in medical school, Kathryn told me, she had jumped at the chance to work on a research project in Rio de Janeiro. She had been itching to get back to South America, ever since that magical undergrad year she had spent in Buenos Aires, and a year in Rio before her residency started seemed like the perfect opportunity. 

But from the beginning, things had gone differently than planned. 

Whereas Buenos Aires had energized and inspired her, Kathryn felt overwhelmed by Rio. Her brain hurt with the effort of learning Portuguese, she never felt quite safe riding the city  _ ônibuses _ , and the sand-and-surf culture of Ipanema and Leblon bored her. First she rented a room from a successful young couple with a shiny apartment in Copacabana, but two months into her stay the couple broke up and sold their apartment. Luckily, she was able to find another place with a calm, middle-aged widow in Urca, but it was so far out of the way that she spent hours on public transportation when she had to visit her research sites in the  _ favelas _ . Although the research went smoothly enough, working with HIV-positive patients created its own strain on her, and she lacked any kind of clinical mentor who could help her understand what she was experiencing. By the time her fiancé and father arrived, Kathryn was already thinking of returning to the States ahead of schedule. 

Justin and Dr. Janeway had traveled there to see Kathryn and to lend a hand in some of the data collection, their visits overlapping for a week. With both of them in Rio, there were the expected tensions of hosting both one’s father and one’s fiancé in a small apartment in a foreign country -- the senior Dr. Janeway, to no one’s surprise, had exacting standards when it came to who was good enough to date his daughters, and Justin Tighe had his own share of hubris as a young oncology resident. The two men had clashed from the beginning, oil and water, and Kathryn was caught between them, running interference.

Then tragedy struck. 

Kathryn told me what Tuvaq had shared with me earlier, that her father and Justin were visiting a research site with her when gang conflict reached its breaking point and neighbors began to shoot at each other in the open street. She told me how she had held both of them in her arms, how she had gone back and forth between her father and Justin, trying to hold back the merciless blood. In the end, both of them had died. 

Kathryn’s voice was matter-of-fact as she recounted this to me, the touch of dissociated trauma evident in her stiff body and her hollow eyes. 

“I think what was hardest for me,” she said, “was that I always believed that medicine could work wonders. That with the proper care, almost anyone could get better. I was naïve, I know that now -- but there I was, a doctor myself -- and I could do nothing. I watched the life bleed out of them, and I could -- do --  _ nothing _ .” I reached over and took her hand. “There were good hospitals in Rio,” she continued. “If they had been able to get there in time, maybe...But ambulances don’t like to go up into the favelas, the roads are mostly dirt, and with the violence…”

“It was a poor community,” I observed. 

“Yes. The medicine in Rio was good enough -- if we had been able to get to a hospital in time. But medicine is worthless if you can’t access it.” She paused and looked at me. “That can’t be at all surprising to you, is it?”

I thought of how to answer, how to be honest without being hurtful. “Growing up out here, on the Reservation -- you’re right, we always knew that we might be out of luck, if we couldn’t get help in time. That’s why my father built the clinic in Second Mesa, so our people wouldn’t have to travel to Flagstaff. To save lives.” 

“This must be so apparent to you,” she said. “But to me -- oh, I knew rationally about poverty and lack of access to care -- but I never really understood it until Rio. How it felt to know that someone you loved was going to die because the fucking ambulance wouldn’t go into the favela.”

“I can’t even imagine how you felt that day. How you got through it, Kathryn.” My heart went out to her, for the pain she must have gone through. It was unlike any that I had personally experienced. 

“Oh, I got through it. A lot of therapy, a lot of time with my mother and sister, and I got through it. I even thought I had moved on. Felt some sense of control over it all, working in Oakland, then coming out here. Working to provide others with access to care. That was my way of dealing with it.”

“A noble endeavor,” I said, perhaps too easily.

She laughed bitterly. “You don’t need to give me compliments, Chakotay. I am well aware of where my motivations come from, and they are hardly noble at this point.” I thought she was being too harsh on herself, but I let that go. It seemed like she had more to say. “So I’ve spent all these years, working in underserved communities, and that has felt like a contribution. A way to control the uncontrollable. And everything feels nice and tidy, until suddenly, it  _ doesn’t _ . Life has this way of unsettling me, just when I think everything is under control.” She laughed. “I know, it sounds ridiculous, as if I could possibly control anything.”

“I think most of us spend a lot of time trying to control our circumstances,” I said. I paused, then: “What feels out of control for you right now, Kathryn?”

“Right now? Besides  _ this _ ?” She waved her hands between the two of us, then she grew pensive. 

“Kathryn?” She waited another minute before speaking. I watched her, was struck again by the strong angle of her jaw, unexpectedly masculine in an otherwise delicate face.

“I was so afraid for your life in Sedona,” she said at last. “I was afraid, and I felt so helpless, believing that the universe was punishing me a second time. And then I was angry at you for being in that situation. Like I had been angry at Justin and my father, for insisting on coming with me that day. Even though they had done nothing to get gunned down. Even though it wasn’t your fault that those men targeted you.” 

“Kathryn,” I said, reaching for her hand. 

Her body began to shake and she pressed at her eyes, as if she could keep the tears from flowing. 

“I didn’t want this to be about me,” she said, pushing my hand away. “You don’t need my tears. I didn’t mean for this to be an excuse for my behavior that day.”

I touched her cheek instead. “Not an excuse, Kathryn,” I said. “An explanation, perhaps. Can you allow yourself that?” She was still so harsh on herself. Was this a remnant of her family history, the Protestant expectation that if she just worked hard enough, the kingdom of heaven would be granted to her? I had never believed in that myth and maybe Kathryn hadn’t consciously either, but I was witnessing something older than either of us in her insistence on holding on to her guilt.

Kathryn closed her eyes more tightly, but the tears ran out anyway. Her efforts to keep in the tears were painful to watch.  _ What would it cost her to cry? _ I wondered. I wrapped my arms around her and held her close. 

“I am so very sorry, Chakotay,” she said. “It went against everything I believe in -- everything I thought I was -- I  _ blamed _ you when -- when I should have --” she trailed off. 

“Shhh,” I told her. Then I thought of my grandmother, the Catholic one who always called me Robert, of how often she had urged me to forgive others’ trespasses. I thought of my father, who told me to forgive, but to not forget. I thought of Magda, my first supervisor, who said that harboring a grudge would sour the psyche. “I forgive you, Kathryn,” I said. 

I hoped that these were the words she would understand, the language of sin and guilt and forgiveness, although I had long since abandoned that way of thinking. It troubled me that we seemed to be enacting the confessional between the two of us, when I wanted to be her partner, her lover, her friend. I hoped she would at least get some consolation from it.

“I don’t think I can forgive myself,” she said wearily. She pressed two fingers to her forehead, as if rubbing away the tension. No consolation, then. So what was she looking for? For me to blame her, berate her? I shuddered to think what her previous relationships must have been like. 

“Then you’ll work on that,” I said. “And it will get easier.” A log popped in the hearth. Dusk had fallen and soon the only light would be from the flames of the fire. 

Kathryn shook her head. “You don’t have to take care of me,” she said. “And you don’t have to forgive me.”

“I know I don’t have to,” I said, somewhat exasperated. I was offering her something, and she was pulling away again. “For god’s sake, Kathryn, I’ve had months to be angry at you about this. It’s know when it’s time to let something go.” I waited. “Do you?”

“No,” she said, somewhat petulantly. 

“So you’ll keep punishing yourself for this?” I asked her. “For Rio, and for Sedona?”

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “When you put it like that, you make me sound like a masochist.”

“Don’t pathologize yourself,” I said curtly. “This isn’t an illness. This is about relationships: the one you have with me, and the one you have with yourself.” I wondered again what her relationship with Mark had been like, but now was not the time to bring that up.

She was silent for a long time. “I see your point, Chakotay,” she said, rubbing the fabric of her pants between two fingers.

“And what’s that?” I wanted to make sure she understood me.

“To stop being so hard on myself. It’s just -- it’s not in my nature to let go so easily.”

“Well, then -- and I mean this with the greatest kindness imaginable -- maybe you need to consider what you are getting from it.” I tried to speak gently, but still my words came out sounding harsher than I had meant.

“Getting from what?”

“The guilt.” She started to speak, and I held up a hand to stop her. “Don’t answer right now, Kathryn. Just think about it. Because  _ I  _ don’t need you to hold that guilt. It’s not for me, and it’s not for Justin or your father at this point.” 

She held my gaze for a long moment. “Are you saying I like feeling guilty?” A log moved in the fireplace, and sparks flew upwards.

“I don’t know what you get out of it,” I said. “I’m only asking you to think more about it.” I stretched my legs out in front of me. My feet were getting cold; it really was too late in the year to forego central heat. “Because you’re going to hurt me again. That’s pretty much guaranteed, it’s what happens in relationships. We love each other, but we will hurt each other. And then, hopefully, we get the chance at repair. And that’s what I want you to take from all this: that there’s a chance at repair. And if the guilt can lead to repair -- then great. But I have a feeling it more often gets in the way.” I stood and looked down at her, smiling. “Am I right?”

“You’re right.” She nodded. “I don’t know if you’ve scolded me or --” she began. I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Or what?” I tilted my head and looked at her.

“Or given me permission,” she said. “Though permission for what, I can’t quite say.”

I pulled her to her feet. Then I put my hands on her shoulders and leaned down to kiss her. 

“Take it as permission,” I said.  "Not that I have the right to grant it. But if it helps, do know that I want you to be free of this burden that you've carried for so long. And I’ll do what I can to help you move on from it." 

She went still in my arms. "Thank you," she murmured. "I -- I want that too. Even though it's hard to imagine, now, who I would be without it." 

I kissed the top of her head, smoothing her hair back from her face, massaging her shoulders. "You would be you," I assured her. "Only ... more so." 

She chuckled, embarrassed. "You so sure that would be a good thing?" 

A finger under her chin, I gently drew her face up to meet my eyes. "There could be nothing better. Never doubt that." 

In bed that night, knowing now that sex was love to Kathryn, I loved her as well as I could. She seemed to understand my wordless persuasions, but I knew no lover could undo decades of self-blame overnight. 

That was all right. We were together now, and I had time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not posting much over there these days, but I can be found on tumblr as [lameraextranjera](http://lameraextranjera.tumblr.com/). My other username was taken over by a pornbot (ironic, I know).


	20. Chapter 20

Kathryn joined me and Sekaya at Leslie’s cross-country meet the following weekend. It was one of the last times Leslie would be running for the Bruins, and Sekaya was very anxious about the outcome of the race. It was a good thing that Leslie traveled to the race on the team bus, because I spent the drive there trying to calm Sekaya’s nerves and reassure her that Leslie’s college chances didn’t hinge on her times.

I had to remind her, too, that caring too much about one person’s time were white values, not ours. “She’s running for the tribe,” I said.

“Just like you got your PhD? For the tribe?” She still had that edge, my sister, even if we were on better terms than we had been in a long time.

I glanced at her, then directed my attention back to the road. “You know very well I didn’t do it alone.”

“I know that you weren’t given your scholarship to Dartmouth for no reason, and neither was ‘Ina. But I don’t want Leslie’s classmates to think that she got in just because she’s an Indian.”

“So you think that if she’s a fast runner, they’ll give her a place at the table?”

“Something like that,” she said.

“She could outrun them all, and she’ll still never be one of them,” I said. “But we wouldn’t want her to be, either.”

“Still feel that way about yourself, little brother?” she said.

“I’m pretty secure in the person I am,” I said. For the first time in a long time, it was true. I had little to prove to anyone outside my community, my profession, or outside the small group of women I was with this morning. And that felt like a very good place to be.

When we got to the racecourse, I looked around for Kathryn. She had preferred to drive herself, she said. It was a crisp, cool day, the first weekend in December. Seeing the cones set up at the starting line, watching the teams warming up on the course, hearing the cries of “Nahongvita!” — it all brought me back to the days when I ran for my high school team. The Hopi have a history of long-distance running dating back to before the European conquest, I had told Kathryn earlier that week, and Hopi runners have dominated the state track and cross-country championships since at least the 1950s. I’d also told her, with some pride, that if the boys’ team won the state championships this year, it would be for the 27th year in a row. When the Bruins competed, it wasn’t just a running race — it was a community event.

Kathryn put two and two together and asked me if I’d run on a championship team myself. I had to admit that I had, in fact I had run on several of them, back in the 90s when the team was just getting started on its current winning streak. It amazed me that, more than twenty years later, they were still going strong.

This meet was the regional championships, not the state contest, but because it was near the reservation, it attracted the largest number of Hopi spectators.

Looking around the parking lot, I spotted Kathryn’s car and made towards it while my sister went to find the team tent.

Kathryn opened the door and stepped out. “I thought I was going to have to park up the road,” she said when she saw me. “It’s a popular event.” Her hair was up in a loose bun, and she was wearing a white puffy vest that I’d seen her in before. The gold glinted at her ears, reflected on her hair. She lifted her sunglasses off her face and I leaned in to kiss her cheek.

“I told you it was going to be,” I said. “Glad you could come.”

We made our way slowly to the starting line, because every few seconds we were stopped by someone we knew: patients, friends, relatives, elders from the tribe, the teachers from the local high school. I knew almost everyone, of course, but it surprised me the extent to which people recognized Kathryn. There were almost as many people wanting to greet and talk to Dr. Janeway as to me.

“I hope I’m not breaking patient confidentiality too much,” Kathryn whispered to me when we had a minute to ourselves.

“I think it’s fine to greet them, Kathryn, even if they are your patients,” I said. “They want to say hi to you and they would think it was rude if you didn’t greet them back.”

“I’m still getting used to practicing in a small community,” she said. “It’s strange to go out and be recognized by so many people. And some people are saying hi to me that I’ve never actually met before!”

I laughed. “Everyone around here knows who you are, Kathryn. Even if they haven’t seen you yet themselves, their brother or mother or cousin has. Word traveled fast when you got here.”

“And what’s the general consensus?” she asked, somewhat hesitatingly.

I paused and took her hand, aware that someone in the crowd would be watching us. “I think it’s a good thing you are here today,” I said. “It will mean a lot to them that you’ve come.”

“I wish I had known about this last year,” she said. “So many people!” She was watching a small group wearing traditional clothing; not everyone did that at the meets, but sometimes the Hopi families would dress up when the Bruins were running, to remind them of whom they were running for.

“Just wait until the solstice,” I said. “I’d like to bring you there.” Still holding her hand, I led her over to the Bruins tent, where Sekaya was talking to the coach. She cut her conversation short when she saw me and Kathryn, then she came over to us.

“Hi, Kathryn,” she said, putting her hand out for Kathryn to shake. “Hi, Chakotay.”

“Hi, Sekaya,” Kathryn said. The two women looked at each other, neither smiling yet, but at least their gazes seemed cordial.

“Sekaya,” I said, “I think we should go stake a place on the course to watch. Want to come along?”

“Sure, just give me a minute,” she said. “You know where you want to go?”

I nodded. “That part of the course down in the hollow, where the track crosses itself on the second half. Then we can spot them come around twice, and after the second time we can take a shortcut back to the finish. Do you know where I mean?”

“I know where it is,” Sekaya said. “I just need to find Leslie so she can give me her sweats.”

“OK, once you find her, come find us,” I said, and I began to lead Kathryn away from the staging area and towards the narrow trail that would lead us to the course.

There was still dew on the ground, and the trail smelled of sage and sweetgrass. I grabbed a piece of wild fennel, rubbing the feathery leaves between my fingers. With my other hand I held Kathryn’s wrist. I looked over at her: she looked perfect in the clear light of the morning, her skin radiant, her body limber. I was so happy that she was here with me.

Kathryn and I found the spot where the course crossed itself and we sat on an outcropping of rocks while we waited for Sekaya. She didn’t come until after the gun blew for the start of the race, arriving at a trot. “Leslie’s with the main group,” she said. “And so are most of her team.” She ducked under the plastic tape marking the edge of the course and came to stand next to me and Kathryn. “Coach says the girls might do better than the boys this year,” Sekaya said. “He’s not happy with the way the boys have been training.”

“Did you talk to him about the video games?” I asked her. It had been Sekaya’s pet project, to start a conversation at the high school about screen time. I was sure she had an ally in the running coaches.

“Yeah, we’ve been talking about it,” she said, her eyes focused on the trail. “Here they come!” The first group of runners was charging up the short incline towards us, their brown legs moving like pistons. I saw a few girls in the blue and white uniforms of Hopi High, surrounded by competitors in red, yellow, and green. Leslie was probably number ten or eleven, not bad for the first kilometer of the race. Now she’d just have to hang on and stay with the main group for the rest of it.

“Go Leslie!” I shouted, and Kathryn joined in. “Go Leslie!” we shouted together.

“Nuhongvita!” Sekaya shouted.

“Go Bruins!” Kathryn cried. She turned to me and smiled. “The girls are really fast,” she said. “Leslie is hanging in there.”

“I told you she was good,” I said, but I was worried. My niece’s face had looked more strained than usual on the uphill. I hoped she would be able to keep up with the pack for the remainder of the race.

We watched the rest of the girls run through — a second wave of younger girls, slower girls with jagged strides. Then we stood and waited for the faster girls to come through again where the course crossed itself.

Kathryn stood with her arms crossed in front of her, kicking at the gravel on the path. Sekaya was on my other side, binoculars in hand. The runners would pass through a valley in front of us that was partly obscured by pine scrub, and Sekaya was training her lens on that segment of the course. “I think I see her!” Sekaya said, handing the binoculars to me. I passed them to Kathryn, who held them up to her face.

“I can’t see them anymore,” Kathryn said. I felt the urge to take the binoculars from Kathryn and try to spot Leslie myself, but I held back.

Sekaya stepped towards her and put her hand on Kathryn’s shoulder. Kathryn lowered the lens and Sekaya used her other hand to point down the valley.

“Over there,” she said, signaling to a distant path.

Kathryn kept looking, then sighed out in frustration. “Here, you take them,” she said, handing the binoculars back to Sekaya. “I don’t know where to look.” Sekaya’s hand was still on Kathryn’s shoulder, the two women staring out over the valley together. Then Sekaya held the binoculars up, looked through them, and holding them in the same place, nudged Kathryn over to look through them.

“Peek through there,” she said. “Do you see them now?”

“I do!” Kathryn said excitedly. Sekaya kept holding the binoculars up in front of Kathryn’s face.

“What do you see?” Sekaya asked. “Can you see Leslie?”

“I’m not sure,” Kathryn said, her hands coming up to rest over Sekaya’s. “I see one — two — three girls in blue and white. One of them might be Leslie. Wait. Now they’re gone. I can’t see them anymore.”

“That’s all right, they’ll be back around this way soon,” Sekaya said. “Now we just have wait.”

We watched the girls come through another time, Leslie still keeping up with the main pack, but looking more haggard than ever. As soon as she had come through, the three of us started to jog back to the finish line so that we’d catch the end of the race.

I don’t remember if Leslie came in 14th or maybe closer to 17th — honestly it’s always a blur at the finish line, until the final scores come in. But none of that mattered to any of us in the end, because we watched Leslie cross the finish line behind a couple of her teammates, and then we saw her fall to the ground.

“Leslie!” Sekaya cried, then she scrambled under the barrier and ran across towards Leslie. A referee was blowing a whistle and another one was out there in the chute, trying to redirect the finishers around the fallen girl. Kathryn dashed after Sekaya, and then I followed them both at a distance.

Kathryn had one hand on Leslie’s neck, taking her pulse, the other hand on her chest, following the rise and fall of her breathing.

“She’s fainted,” Kathryn said. “Must be exhaustion, or —”

“I’m always telling her she needs to pace herself,” Sekaya said. “She runs until there’s nothing left in her.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, hearing incorrectly. “It’s not hot enough for her to have heat stroke.” Neither woman responded. Sekaya was cradling Leslie’s head, trying to rouse her back into consciousness.

Kathryn stood and put her hands on her hips. “Chakotay,” she barked. “Try and find the medic tent, tell them we need a stretcher out here. We need to get her off the course.” I turned to run towards the staging gate, but already two men were bringing a stretcher towards us.

“An ambulance is on its way,” one of them said.

“Where from?” Janeway asked.

“Flagstaff,” they said.

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” she said. “I’m a doctor. Can one of you get the dispatcher on the phone?”

One of the men nodded. Between the two of them, Sekaya, and Kathryn, they got Leslie on the stretcher. The color had come back into Leslie’s face and she began to move her head slowly, but she still appeared to be unconscious. The men lifted the stretcher and carried her gently to the medic’s tent at the side of the course.

“Nurse Bradley,” Kathryn said, greeting the school nurses from Hopi High. “I think it’s runner’s hypotension,” she said in a low voice.

“Yep,” the nurse agreed. “I’ve seen it before. Let’s just put a blanket over her, keep her warm.”

“I’ve got the EMC on the line,” one of the men who had carried the stretcher said, handing his phone to Kathryn.

“This is Dr. Kathryn Janeway of the Indian Health Service,” she said. “I’m with a patient here who is exhibiting signs of postural hypotension, lost consciousness immediately after finishing a running race, no apparent head injury or other trauma. She’s breathing fine, pulse is normal. I think she’s starting to regain consciousness….No, no, I don’t think that’s necessary…She’s opening her eyes now.”

For something that had been so dramatic, it was over in a matter of seconds. Leslie sat up and pushed the blanket off of her. She looked around at all of us.

“What happened?” she asked. “What’s going on, Mom?” She sounded frightened and Sekaya reached towards her, pulling her into a hug.

“You fainted,” Sekaya told her.

“How are you feeling now?” Kathryn asked, her fingers on Leslie’s wrist.

“Thirsty,” Leslie said. “Can someone bring me some water?” She brushed the hair back from her face.

I went to find her a water bottle at the next tent. When I came back a few minutes later, Leslie was standing up, her arm draped around Sekaya’s shoulders.

“My mom won’t let me go see the results,” she complained.

“I’ll go for you,” I offered, leaving them again. I went across the staging area and read the poster board they’d put up with the team scores and the individuals’ times. Hopi High had come in first in the girls’ race. The boys were still out running the course.

We stayed to watch the boys finish – it was another first place win for the team, and Leslie was ecstatic. A few of her girlfriends had come to join her in the medic tent and watch the boys run in. Leslie chatted easily with her friends, but the adults all watched her carefully.

“Is there anything we can do to prevent it happening again?” Sekaya asked Kathryn. They were standing closely together, their heads bent toward one another, conferring.

“It’s not dangerous,” Kathryn said, “unless she hits her head on something when she falls.”

Sekaya looked at her. “So it’s just going to keep happening?”

“I don’t know,” Kathryn answered. “She should probably get an echocardiogram and a stress test done. We can’t do them at our clinics, but they have them at the hospital in Flagstaff.”

“Just tell me,” Sekaya said, “if this is something I need to be worrying about.”

Kathryn turned and looked at her. “It’s probably nothing serious, Sekaya,” she said. “But you’re her mother, and you should absolutely be looking out for her. So just make sure you follow through with the tests. I can get you hooked up this week.”

Sekaya was silent for a minute. “Thanks for your help,” she said at last.

“Of course,” Kathryn said. “I’m a doct—“

“I know you’re the doctor,” Sekaya said. “But I am thanking you as my brother’s friend. As someone who is important to him.” The two women looked at each other, faces serious. “Would you like to join us for dinner tonight?” Sekaya asked.

“Yes. I would like that,” Kathryn said. “Thank you.”

We all arranged to go our separate ways that afternoon; Kathryn had to stop by the clinic and finish some paperwork, I had some yard work to do at the desert house, and Sekaya and Leslie were going to celebrate her win at the team lunch.

I wasn’t glad that Leslie had fainted again at the finish line, but I wondered if Kathryn being there to help was a step towards some kind of friendship between her and Sekaya. It was too early to say. Both women were stubborn and opinionated and intelligent, and if they could find a way to relate to each other, they just might be friends someday. For my part, I feared what would happen to my relationship with Kathryn if she and my sister couldn’t find a way to get along. Dinner tonight was a step forward, and solstice might be another one. In this I had to hold back and let the two of them figure things out for themselves.

Driving back home by myself, the light was bright over the desert, the sky the cloudless, brilliant blue of early winter. This time of year reminded me of my father and the care he had always put into the solstice celebrations.

Suddenly I remembered that I had dreamed of my father the night before.

* * *

 

We were in a cave that I recognized as one that we had visited during our last trip to Mexico together, on the grounds of some Olmec ruins outside of Cuernavaca. We had gone there with Leslie and Sekaya, who of course knew more about pre-Columbian civilizations than any of the rest of us, but my father had always loved that history, too, and in the decade before his death had made as many trips with us as possible to Mexico and Central America.

In my dream my father and I are entering the cave together. Someone is guiding us down the corridor to the spot where, in this dreamworld, the light from the sun will shine down at noon on the winter solstice. We stand there waiting just outside of the ring of light. In the middle of the cavern is a low platform. The light begins to move, to reach towards the platform, and I know that is where it will fall at the right moment. But then, illuminated by the sun's rays, flowers slowly begin to drift down from the opening in the roof of the cave: golden marigolds and white lilies, cholla blossoms and cactus blooms. They land in a soft pile on the platform.

My father speaks to me. “Chakotay,” he says, “Take this flower.” And he turns towards me with a pink rose in his hand, so unlike the other flowers from the desert, but equally delicate and beautiful.

“ _’Ina_?” I say. I have missed him so much.

“You have been lonely for a long time,” he says. I take the flower and lift it to my nose, smell its petals.

“Where did it come from?” I ask.

“There are things that bloom in winter,” he says. Then the light shifts in the room, and shines upon the rose in my hand.

“What am I supposed to do with it?” I ask him.

“It’s not for you,” he says. “It’s for Kathryn.”

Then we walk out of the cave together. I’m still clenching the rose in my hand. Even in my memory, I can feel the prick of its thorns against my palm. When we get to the entrance, the bright light of day almost blinds me, and I wake up.

* * *

It will be midwinter in a couple of weeks. We’ve invited Kathryn to come with us to the ceremony, with all that invitation means: that she is one of us, and we will stand by her. My love for her is still new, and still fragile: a desert rose, perhaps, blooming at an improbable time and place. It comforts me to think that my father does not want me to be lonely. I do not want to be lonely. I want to fill my garden with green vines and warm pools, create an oasis for Kathryn in the desert. I want to see her belly grow round with child, and rub her back when she is in pain, and make her garlands of ocotillo and mesquite to decorate our home.

It feels too soon for this kind of declaration to her, and yet perhaps not soon enough to admit to myself how much I want this future with her.

When I get to my house, I’m surprised to see Kathryn’s car parked out back. Once I stop, she walks to the side of my truck and opens the door. The sun is glinting on her glasses, her hair, the gold ring she still wears on one hand. She smells of  _palo santo_ and apple blossoms and pepper trees.

“Welcome home,” I say, stepping into her arms.

“Welcome home,” she says back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we finish. Thank you for accompanying me this far. I've enjoyed writing this so very, very much.
> 
> For more about Hopi running, I am indebted to [this article.](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/05/sports/hopi-high-school-cross-country-running.html)
> 
> Thanks, many thanks, to [devovere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/devovere/pseuds/devovere) for all of the marvelous editing she has done for the last half of this fic. I believe my writing has improved greatly with her help. She has pushed me in all the right ways, and I am very grateful to the hours of work she has put in on the behalf of this story. 
> 
> Finally, it seems I've inadvertently written songfic; a line in this chapter was inspired by the homonymous song by Wendy Colonna, whose music I've been listening to throughout the writing of this story. Kudos to the reader who can recognize it.
> 
> ~Emma

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [What Endures](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15769437) by [devovere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/devovere/pseuds/devovere)




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